WRC rejects Seanán Ó Coistín’s employment claims over FSAI Irish-language dispute

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

The Workplace Relations Commission rejected all of Seanán Ó Coistín’s employment rights complaints against the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and staffing agency Orange Recruitment, according to decisions published on 1 October. Ó Coistín had challenged the end of his work as a communications executive after sending colleagues an email criticising the agency’s Irish-language capability.

Adjudication officer Breiffní O’Neill found that Ó Coistín was not dismissed when placed on administrative leave because his pay continued. The operative cause of the employment ending was the expiry of his fixed-term agency contract, leaving the adjudicator without jurisdiction over that complaint. O’Neill also found that complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act and fixed-term work legislation were filed too late. The adjudicator rejected Ó Coistín’s argument that the absence of Irish-language versions of those laws disadvantaged him.