Buncrana man made feel ‘sacrificial lamb’ by Inland Fisheries Ireland, WRC hears - Donegal Daily

A fresh complaint has been lodged by a fisheries officer who has claimed that he was made a “sacrificial lamb” by Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI).A Workplace Rel...

A fresh complaint has been lodged by a fisheries officer who has claimed that he was made a “sacrificial lamb” by Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI).

A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) hearing in Letterkenny has been told that James Doherty from Buncrana, an assistant fisheries inspector with the IFI, lodged an “up to date” complaint last month.

On the fifth day of another hearing involving the parties, WRC adjudicator Shay Henry said there was “no way” he could deal with the new complaint as part of the current proceedings.

Mr Tiernan Lowey BL, counsel for the IFI, said his client was “grossly prejudiced” by the development and added that the IFI would “defend those in due course”.

Mr Ciaran Elders BL, for Mr Doherty, said that it had been the IFI’s position that they did not want any evidence brought that was beyond the date of the initial claim.

“The only way that we could get that evidence was to bring a new claim,” he said. “It forms part of the penalisation that the claimant has suffered in this very case.”

Mr Doherty claimed he was penalised, singled out and ostracised after he submitted protected disclosures to former minister for the environment Eamon Ryan and to his own senior management.

The protected disclosures regarded a controversy involving more than a dozen officially hired vehicles that had been assigned to staff without insurance cover.

In August 2021, while driving one of the uninsured IFI vehicles, Mr Doherty was involved in a crash.

On Monday, Mr Doherty said that “things changed” after he made a protected disclosure.

“I sat on it for months because I didn’t know what to do,” he said.

Asked in cross-examination by Mr Lowey if he believed that he was prosecuted for careless driving following the crash because of a question mark over the insurance, he replied: “I feel that there may have been influences.”

He said he received a summons two days short of the six-month window for a summons to be sought from the DPP and he also queried why the IFI was not deemed to have been a respondent in a personal injuries claim.

Mr Doherty told Mr Henry: “There should have been another summons issued for no insurance”.

Correspondence written by Mr Doherty was opened to the hearing in which the employee said he didn’t “know who I can trust in IFI anymore” and how he felt as if he was a “sacrificial lamb to make the legalities for IFI go away.”

Mr Lowey contested that there was a “false conflation” of the issues of insurance and the issues of a criminal prosecution and Doherty being sued.

Mr Doherty was critical of the IFI’s handling of the matter.

He said: “I think that Inland Fisheries Ireland failed from the outset. When they became aware of an issue, there should have been immediate support.

“They should have come and done the prudent thing - make representation to the Gardai and supported me. If it was handled differently, the Gardai would have seen there was a more honest approach to this.”

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Mr Doherty said that he “wasn’t looked after by my employer” following the collision and added:

“They failed to do that and that is the bottom line. I got a letter accusing me of producing incorrect insurance documents. I was accused. That is a serious allegation to make about someone.”

Mr Doherty said his reputation was “smeared” as a result with people talking locally as if he were “driving about with no insurance.”

He added: “I don’t agree that I was protected by my employer. They closed the door when the horse had already bolted.”

Mr Doherty took issue with not being kept informed about what was happening during a 15-month period before IFI informed him that they would indemnify Mr Doherty in a personal injuries claim.

“I was left bewildered why I wasn’t kept abreast of the whole thing.”

The tribunal heard that IFI forked out €204,947.27 in respect of a personal injuries claim following the 2021 crash.

Mr Łowey said that IFI had told Mr Doherty in correspondence that he would “remain safe” and would have a job “long term” with the agency.

However, Mr Doherty said that he went back to work in February 2024 after a period where he suffered from mental health issues.

“I wanted to go back. I loved my job. I felt that I wanted to go back to work. I had to be strong to go back to work. I wanted to go back to work to feel normal. It’s not my style to sit around a house.”

Mr Doherty added: “As soon as I went back, penalisation started.”

In June of this year, the tribunal heard that Doherty had been the subject of an internal investigation into a complaint that he had deployed covert cameras in a location in Donegal in breach of IFI policy.

He said a superior had directed that the cameras be put in place and other two staff had installed them, but only he had faced an investigation.

Mr Doherty’s counsel said the complaint identified two other IFI staff as installing the cameras, but it was decided that only his client should face an internal investigation.

“That’s what it says in black and white. There seemed a keenness to have me singled out,” Doherty said.

He told a hearing that he loved his job but he felt he was seen “as a black sheep” and that his career with the agency after 15 years was over.

He said he had been offered a job with the State’s separate sea fisheries protection service.

Mr Doherty told before how he felt he was treated as “a black sheep, a leper and outcast” artery making a disclosure to Francis O’Donnell, who was then the chief executive of the IFI.

He has also claimed that an investigation into illegal drift netting off the west Donegal coast was given to another district while his own team was left as a back up.