High Court gives qualified right-to-silence ruling in ESB case

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

An ESB employee was entitled to refuse to answer his employer’s questions while a criminal investigation was ongoing, the High Court ruled. The proceedings were reported on 12 February 2024.

Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy said that entitlement would cease when the investigation ended, or if ESB established that its interest in the performance of the employee’s contractual obligations outweighed the risk of infringing his right to silence.

The court answered the first preliminary question with a qualified yes. It found that the further questions about whether the refusal amounted to a breach allowing ESB to treat the employment contract as terminated, and when it was terminated, did not arise for consideration.

The dispute arose from allegations that ESB employees had sought payments from customers in exchange for expediting work. The employee denied wrongdoing and, on legal advice, declined to answer ESB’s questions because of the Garda investigation and his right to silence.