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A fresh complaint has been lodged by a fisheries officer who has claimed that he was made a \u201csacrificial lamb\u201d by Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI).<\/p>\n
A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) hearing in Letterkenny has been told that James Doherty from Buncrana, an assistant fisheries inspector with the IFI, lodged an \u201cup to date\u201d complaint last month.<\/p>\n
On the fifth day of another hearing involving the parties, WRC adjudicator Shay Henry said there was \u201cno way\u201d he could deal with the new complaint as part of the current proceedings.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some stage, we need to get to an end,\u201d Mr Henry said.<\/p>\n
Mr Tiernan Lowey BL, counsel for the IFI, said his client was \u201cgrossly prejudiced\u201d by the development and added that the IFI would \u201cdefend those in due course\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Ciaran Elders BL, for Mr Doherty, said that it had been the IFI\u2019s position that they did not want any evidence brought that was beyond the date of the initial claim.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way that we could get that evidence was to bring a new claim,\u201d he said. \u201cIt forms part of the penalisation that the claimant has suffered in this very case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Doherty claimed he was penalised, singled out and ostracised after he submitted protected disclosures to former minister for the environment Eamon Ryan and to his own senior management.<\/p>\n
The protected disclosures regarded a controversy involving more than a dozen officially hired vehicles that had been assigned to staff without insurance cover.<\/p>\n
In August 2021, while driving one of the uninsured IFI vehicles, Mr Doherty was involved in a crash.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Mr Doherty said that \u201cthings changed\u201d after he made a protected disclosure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sat on it for months because I didn\u2019t know what to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked in cross-examination by Mr Lowey if he believed that he was prosecuted for careless driving following the crash because of a question mark over the insurance, he replied: \u201cI feel that there may have been influences.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he received a summons two days short of the six-month window for a summons to be sought from the DPP and he also queried why the IFI was not deemed to have been a respondent in a personal injuries claim.<\/p>\n
Mr Doherty told Mr Henry: \u201cThere should have been another summons issued for no insurance\u201d.<\/p>\n
Correspondence written by Mr Doherty was opened to the hearing in which the employee said he didn\u2019t \u201cknow who I can trust in IFI anymore\u201d and how he felt as if he was a \u201csacrificial lamb to make the legalities for IFI go away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Lowey contested that there was a \u201cfalse conflation\u201d of the issues of insurance and the issues of a criminal prosecution and Doherty being sued.<\/p>\n
Mr Doherty was critical of the IFI\u2019s handling of the matter.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI think that Inland Fisheries Ireland failed from the outset. When they became aware of an issue, there should have been immediate support.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should have come and done the prudent thing – make representation to the Gardai and supported me. If it was handled differently, the Gardai would have seen there was a more honest approach to this.\u201d<\/p>\n
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