The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) was "unfair and disrespectful" to a former Irish Army captain who was made redundant and told a UK manager would be appointed to the job he had been doing.
A Workplace Relations Commission adjudicating officer found it "extraordinary" that the RNLI thought a head office policy and fundraising officer was a better fit for the "front-line operational role" as head of region for Ireland, replacing Seán Dillon's position.
The tribunal has upheld his claim under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the sea rescue charity and ordered it to pay him €30,000 in compensation on top of the lump sum he already received for redundancy.
At a hearing last month, Mr Dillon said the charity’s failure to attend to answer his statutory complaint was "symbolic of the contempt, of the ignorance or contempt, towards Ireland as a region in the RNLI".
Mr Dillon told the hearing that the RNLI was a "governance basket case" and cited a lack of compliance with maritime regulations and certain "safeguarding" issues.
He said at times kit was not being issued and training was running out – leaving some volunteers putting to sea with out-of-date qualifications.
He also said that Irish donors would hand over cheques with a view to them going to Irish lifeboat stations, but they would instead be sent to the UK and "go into an account forever".
"There hasn’t been a new lifeboat delivered to Ireland in I don’t know how many years," he said of the organisation at the time of a series of reorganisation proposals.
He maintained he was unfairly selected for redundancy from his position as country manager and denied an interview for the new head of region role replacing it -- before a senior manager at RNLI headquarters who was also facing redundancy got the job.
The former Army captain said this occurred after "pushback" from RNLI headquarters staff in Poole in Dorset to a decentralisation plan he and other regional managers put together for the charity’s new chief executive, Mark Dowie, before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The plan was to give more autonomy to regional managers and devolve functions like fundraising, HR and corporate governance.
Poole, which Mr Dillon said was regarded as "fat" and a "bottleneck" by Mr Dowie, was to be redesignated "from headquarters to a 'support centre’", which Mr Dillon said was "like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas".
"It’s a maritime organisation, a lot of Royal Navy, CBEs, KBEs – trying to assign a role for Ireland was quite difficult," Mr Dillon said.
The complainant said he had to stop fundraising material going out to Irish households marked with the Queen’s picture and the pound sterling symbol and that there was particular resistance to devolving fundraising.
As decentralisation progressed in 2021, he found out he would have to interview for a job as head of region in Ireland, which he said he was already doing.
Then he was put on notice that he was at risk of redundancy, as were others at his grade and some staff in Poole, Mr Dillon said.
At redundancy consultation meetings which followed, he learned his bosses regarded the new head of region positions to be more senior, though he held that there were no significant differences from his job description.
"I felt there was a lot of shenanigans going on," he said. "Their experience is in fundraising and policy," he said of the successful candidate for the Irish regional head job. "I’m over here doing the role and my qualifications are superior," he added.
The tribunal made a finding that Mr Dillon was assured at first that the Ireland head of region role was still available for him – but by the end of the notice period he was told the job was "gone" and that the UK manager, who had been facing redundancy herself, had "secured that role" as a suitable alternative for her own position.
The adjudicating officer, Eileen Campbell, wrote in her decision that the RNLI "did not adequately give serious consideration to suitable alternative roles" for Mr Dillon and that there was "no meaningful engagement" with him on them.
"It was unfair and disrespectful to the complainant that he should discover while the [redundancy] consultation process had not yet finished that someone was in fact appointed to the Ireland role and he would not have the opportunity even to interview," Ms Campbell added.
She noted that Mr Dillon and his colleagues had "raised expectations" because of the "rhetoric" of managing director Mark Dowie and had helped him with his push for a "leaner, flatter structure" at the RNLI.
"I am satisfied the reorganisation was not the cause of the complainant's dismissal and whatever that cause was lies within the peculiar knowledge of the respondent," Ms Campbell wrote, calling the redundancy process "entirely at odds with his right to fair procedures".
Noting the reduction in Mr Dillon’s salary from €7,300 a month to €6,675, and the loss of pension contributions, permanency, health insurance and a company car, and that the RNLI had already paid an undisclosed redundancy lump sum to Mr Dillon, she awarded €30,000 in for loss of earnings.
Ms Campbell had gone ahead with the hearing last month with only Mr Dillon and a member of the press in attendance, having waited an hour for any representative from the RNLI to attend and satisfying herself in her inquiries that the charity was on record.
She noted that a legal firm acting for the RNLI wrote the WRC three days after the hearing took place "advising they were coming on record" and were provided with Mr Dillon’s submission on losses.
