A state body has been found to have unfairly dismissed a director following an incident in which he allowed his teenage son to drive a tractor belonging to the state body.
Pat Gorman was also awarded €38,500 by the WRC, following the finding against Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI).
Gorman had worked for IFI for 37 years before his dismissal in October 2022, having been promoted to director in 2020.
In January 2022, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) received an anonymous and undated letter alleging that Gorman had improper use of a tractor belonging to the IFI.
The IFI immediately moved to suspend the Gorman and initiate an investigation. The fisheries body would receive several more anonymous letters regarding Gorman.
However, none of the allegations contained in these letters were proven to be true. In particular, the tractor that Gorman had at his farm was stored there with the agreement of his line manager as there was no shed storage available for it at the Cong Hatchery in Co. Mayo, the IFI’s local base of operations.
When the IFI suspended Gorman in February 2022, he was directed to return the tractor as soon as possible. He proceeded to go home and asked his teenage son to drive the tractor to the Cong Hatchery, while he drove in his car behind the tractor.
Gorman accepted that this was a “massive error of judgement” and said that he was under “huge stress” at that time.
That same evening, Gorman had been told about possible illegal fishing on one of the local lakes by a reliable informant. After dropping the tractor back, he hooked one of the IFI’s rigid inflatable boats (RIBs) up to his car and drove back to his house. He proceeded to go out on Lough Mask, on the border of counties Mayo and Galway, unaccompanied and while he was suspended from his duties.
When the IFI discovered these two incidents, they were added to the investigation against Gorman. It was for these actions, and not the unproven claims in the anonymous letters, that Gorman was dismissed in October 2022.
Gorman made his complaint to the WRC in November 2022. The case was heard in July 2023, and the decision of the WRC delivered in early December.
In giving evidence, Gorman said that he was shaken after being suspended, and that when he was informed of his suspension by his line manager Greg Forde and IFI CEO Francis O’Donnell, the interaction between the three of them took place “in full view” of other staff at Cong Hatchery.
He was told during that conversation that the tractor would have to be returned to Cong Hatchery that evening. However, according to Gorman, no one offered to drive him home after he dropped it off.
In his evidence, Gorman said he “had to face his wife and five kids and tell them he was out of work”, and that he was very upset. He also said his wife was “extremely upset”.
When he arrived home after learning of the suspension, a man was waiting for him who informed him of potential illegal fishing taking place on Lough Mask. Gorman said in his evidence that he couldn’t bring himself to tell the man he couldn’t do anything and said he would look into the matter.
After he and his son dropped the tractor back, he took one of the IFI’s boats to investigate the potential case of illegal fishing. On the way home he stopped in a shop and met a person he had prosecuted in the past, who had already learned of his suspension and “gloated to him”.
Following his suspension, Gorman said he went to his GP and was prescribed sleeping tablets and antidepressants.
Gorman said that his family had been “ridiculed” in the local community, and that, as the anonymous letters made accusations of misuse of public assets, people in the community formed that view that this was the reason he was dismissed.
WRC adjudication officer David James Murphy decided that that the original decision to suspend Gorman was “obviously punitive and unfair”.
“That potentially any member of the public could secure the immediate suspension of a member of staff by writing an anonymous letter and without providing any evidence is quite shocking,” Murphy said.
He criticised Gorman’s line manager for allowing the suspension to proceed despite knowing of the arrangement that the tractor would be stored on Gorman’s farm.
The adjudication officer said that the reasons for the suspension had “never been substantiated”, by the IFI.
Murphy also said that the IFI could “reasonably foresee the fallout from the suspension” in the local community.
In particular, Murphy noted that the writer of the anonymous letters soon began referring to the Gorman as “sacked” in their subsequent letters, even though he was merely suspended at the time; and that Gorman began “receiving abuse” from members of the public he had previously prosecuted who knew about the suspension.
Murphy said that, having regard to all the evidence, he was “not satisfied that that decision [to dismiss] was arrived fairly or that it fell within the band of reasonableness”.
He noted that Gorman’s error in judgement in allowing his son drive the tractor was made “on the back of [Gorman’s] sudden and unfair suspension following an unblemished record of 37 years”.
Murphy also said that Gorman believed that he had to return the tractor on the evening in question, and that the fact he was instructed to do so had not being taken into account during the subsequent investigation into his conduct.
“Having regard to all the circumstances I do not accept that a lesser sanction, and the context surrounding [Gorman’s] error, were seriously considered by [IFI]. The dismissal was unfair,” Murphy said.