A bus driver who was fired after being caught on camera using his mobile phone just before getting into a collision has lost a challenge to his dismissal - but is now back behind the wheel for work, a tribunal has heard.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has rejected a challenge brought by Peter Gleeson over his summary dismissal from Go-Ahead Ireland Bus Ltd two weeks before Christmas in 2022 for using his mobile phone while driving.
His trade union, SIPTU, had argued that putting their client out of work was too severe a penalty. The company had a "zero-tolerance" approach and considered a total phone ban to be of "fundamental" importance to the health and safety of the public and its staff, the tribunal heard.
Mr Gleeson's bosses examined CCTV footage from inside the bus following the crash, which happened near Prosperous, Co Kildare, on Tuesday 24 November 2022, the tribunal heard.
Mr Gleeson told the tribunal in evidence that he was driving along a country road at about 5.45am that morning, headed for Dublin, when a van "coming at speed in the opposite direction collided with the mirror on the driver’s side of the bus".
The van failed to stop, he said. He told the tribunal he made contact with his depot to report the matter but could not recall if he used his phone or the radio to do so. After driving on for another half hour, a tyre blew out and he let his passengers out to wait for another bus to come for them, he said.
An investigation meeting was held on 6 December 2022, and Mr Gleeson was put before a disciplinary hearing on 12 December and sacked on foot of a finding of gross misconduct that day.
The company’s disciplinary officer, Keith McDonnell, a manager in charge of commuter buses in the Dublin region, told Mr Gleeson in a letter of dismissal that the evidence in front of him "shows that you used a mobile device in the cab of a moving bus while in service".
He said he believed it to be gross misconduct and decided Mr Gleeson was to be immediately dismissed.
Go-Ahead’s representative, David Horgan of human resources firm Stratis Consulting, submitted that there was damage caused to the bus’s mirror and that when CCTV footage was examined it "indicated that the complainant was using his mobile phone just before the collision occurred".
Mr Gleeson’s trade union representative, Vivian Cullen of the SIPTU Workers Rights Centre, said there were flaws with the company's investigation and grievance process - taking issue in particular with the absence of a collective agreement on the use of CCTV for disciplinary purposes.
He added that the sacking was "too harsh" a sanction and contended the decision to fire Mr Gleeson was "decided before the investigation", with no "less draconian sanction" considered.
Adjudicator Catherine Byrne decided Mr Gleeson’s union had shown a "tacit acceptance" of the use of CCTV in the course of the investigation and that the complainant "was always aware that he was being recorded while driving".
She accepted the sacking was "severe" but that she considered it "proportionate" in view of the risk of injury and death which could arise from "distraction through the use of a phone".
She also found the company was "correct" to class using a mobile phone at the wheel as gross misconduct, rejecting an argument advanced by Mr Cullen.
She noted that Mr Gleeson had made it clear he "liked his job" and was "extremely upset when he was dismissed".
"To his credit, he started driving again for another company, although not until more than a year after his dismissal," she wrote.
"Unfortunately for the complainant, his failure to comply with oneof the most critical safety aspects of his job led to him being dismissed, a decision which I find was not unreasonable," Ms Byrne concluded.
She rejected the unfair dismissal claim, as well as a secondary complaint seeking the payment of minimum statutory notice following Mr Gleeson’s dismissal.
