Trustees take High Court action over proposed AGM motions

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

Mary Farrell, Frank O’Dwyer and Matthew Ryan, trustees of the Retired Civil and Public Servants Association, brought a High Court action over the alleged refusal by its governing council to allow them to raise concerns at its AGM.

The trustees said their proposed motions concerned the association’s financial and corporate management. The issues included alleged subsistence and travel expenses paid by council members to themselves, the auditing of accounts and the alleged failure to appoint auditors in accordance with the association’s rules.

The trustees said the council had failed to permit the motions to go before the AGM. The court heard that the council had said in correspondence with their solicitor that discussion of such affairs at the meeting could be “defamatory”. The trustees rejected that argument and said they were effectively being “gagged”.

They sought orders including an injunction compelling the council to allow several motions before the AGM, which was scheduled for 12 December 2023 at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin.

On 1 December 2023, the matter was mentioned before Mr Justice Mark Sanfey. Only the plaintiffs were represented and aware of the application. The judge permitted them to serve short notice of the injunction proceedings on the defendants, and the matter was to return to court the following week.

This report covers an earlier stage of the case. Later developments are not reported here.