A tribunal has upheld the dismissal of a human resources officer who said she was let go by St Vincent de Paul for raising concerns about a new hire's vetting documentation - after being told by the charity that the real problem was her communication style.
Claims of whistleblower penalisation and unfair dismissal by the HR officer Valerie McDonagh against the Society of St Vincent de Paul Council of Ireland were rejected by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
The tribunal was told that despite concerns about gaps in vetting documentation about his life overseas, the charity let the new hire to work at one of its centres in 2024.
It then let him go when the concerns were not resolved, the WRC heard - though an adjudicator noted there was no suggestion the man, who was referred to as "Mr X" in the proceedings, posed any risk to children.
Ms McDonagh started work in the charity's HR department in April 2024 and was dismissed in July that year on the basis of her performance during probation.
Her barrister, Maurice Osbourne BL, submitted that his client had raised "serious concerns" about SVP's vetting processes in regard to Mr X, who was recruited to work at a community centre and homeless accommodation facility.
He argued that his client's dismissal was whistleblower penalisation.
Mark Curran BL, for the charity, submitted however that Ms McDonagh "was a bad fit and had poor communications skills".
Briona Sheils, SVP's head of HR, gave evidence that Ms McDonagh's dismissal was "unrelated to the Mr X issue". She said she was concerned about the complainant’s "communication style".
She cited practices such as "emailing without salutations", copying in colleagues on emails that could be seen as "critical", and Ms McDonagh's "general tone".
Ms Sheils said tone was important in the context of a a member-governed and volunteer-led non-governmental organisation, particularly in the HR department, where staff were expected to be "emotionally intelligent advisors and sounding boards".
"Too sharp"
Ms Sheils added that she had concerns about Ms McDonagh's "relationship-building" and "ability to operate in a team – describing the complainant's approach and use of language as "too sharp".
She identified a suggestion by Ms McDonagh that the centre manager "needed to be reprimanded for pushing for Mr X to be onboarded" as an example of this.
Ms McDonagh's position was that Ms Sheils had "manufactured performance issues" to justify the dismissal during probation, adjudication officer David James Murphy wrote.
He noted that Ms McDonagh seemed to be taking the position that her efforts on Mr X's file would "draw focus" to the fact that Ms Shiels had approved the man's hiring.
He noted that when the issue of communication style was put to Ms McDonagh, her response was to refer to her "significant experience in a corporate setting and in working in the UK as some sort of proof that this was not possible".
He noted that he asked her if she felt she needed to "adjust her communication style" when she came from the UK corporate environment to work for an NGO in Dublin.
"The complainant didn't answer my question and instead responded that she was 'about the facts and this was about a protected disclosure'," he wrote.
"This would all point to the respondent having a genuine problem with the complainant's communication style and her either being unable to accept this or her determining that it was her employer’s style which was wrong, and not hers," he wrote.
"Either reaction would be a perfectly legitimate basis for a probationary dismissal as well [being] as unrelated to any protected disclosure," he added.
He dismissed Ms McDonagh's complaints, which she had brought under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, and the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994.
Mr Curran was instructed by Jessica Bielenberg of Mason Hayes Curran LLP in the case. Mr Osbourne was instructed by Roger Cleary of Cleary and Co Solicitors.
Addressing the press at a hearing earlier this year, Mr Murphy said: "Much of this dispute concerns whether a worker at St Vincent de Paul was properly vetted. It would be totally unfair to name the person, for the obvious connotations."
While Mr X's garda vetting "came back clear", another official in the HR department had raised concerns about the level of documentation available from overseas on Mr X, as he had lived in "several different countries", he noted.
There was a "difference of opinion" among the charity's management on whether it was acceptable to employ Mr X with his international vetting not complete.
The hiring manager "wanted [Mr X] to start and begin training and induction" without waiting for the vetting process to be completed. "This was mostly because the centre manager was about to go on annual leave," Mr Murphy noted.
He wrote that Ms McDonagh seemed to have accepted that the hiring decision lay with local management and that the hiring of Mr X was supported by the head of governance at SVP, Jonathon O’Rourke, on the proviso that Mr X would be appropriately supervised at the centre as part of an onboarding process.
Mr O'Rourke’s evidence to the tribunal was that the downstairs parts of the centre were "public rooms" where people not subject to vetting could come and go. Mr X would not have access to the residential rooms upstairs in the centre unless he went there with vetted staff, he said.
However, the respondent’s former national safeguarding manager, Bernadette Casey, who was called by the complainant’s lawyers, told the WRC her view was that the situation was "too great a risk". "Supervision can fail due to staffing pressures," she said.
"For the avoidance of doubt, there is no reasonable suggestion, much less evidence, that Mr X was a risk to children," Mr Murphy wroted.
In assessing Ms McDonagh’s evidence, Mr Murphy concluded that she had failed to provide him with "reliable evidence" - but not due to "dishonesty".
"Her responses were closer to that of a press officer rather than a witness. She didn’t answer the questions put to her but instead redirected to the issues she wanted to highlight," he added.
"I did point out to her directly that her failure to answer the questions Mr Curran asked could result in me deciding her evidence could not be relied on however this form of engagement continued throughout her cross examination," he added.
