WRC awards sacked Irish Rail worker €12,000 for unfair dismissal

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The Workplace Relations Commission awarded Liam Óg Lynch €12,000 after finding that his dismissal by Iarnród Éireann was substantially and procedurally unfair. Adjudication officer Brian Dolan said the circumstances of the crane incident should have been investigated and called the decision to raise the sanction from a final written warning to dismissal extraordinary.

Lynch took control of a gantry crane on 8 March 2023, during an incident in which a contractor’s foot was trapped beneath a beam. Irish Rail employment relations manager Laura Devoy said he had been instructed the previous month not to operate the crane until further notice. The company’s disciplinary process found that his actions against his line manager’s instructions amounted to a reckless violation.

His union representative, Andrea Cleere, said a contractor had been operating the crane when it became apparent that the load had not been properly secured. She said Lynch took over because the load was unsafe and decided to lower it as best he could. Lynch’s position was that he had been placed in an impossible situation and acted to control an existing danger and avert further damage and injury.

Dolan said the investigation should have included interviews with other workers and that their statements should have been put to Lynch. He said Lynch had been left without a right of response to the finding against him or an opportunity to fight for his job.

The WRC declined to order reinstatement. Dolan accepted that Irish Rail’s concerns about Lynch’s safety record were not entirely unfounded and noted that Lynch had started a course in an unrelated field. He concluded that the parties had moved on and that restoring the employment relationship would be impractical.