A senior manager at Aer Lingus has told a tribunal she feared that a pilot-turned-whistleblower would experience the “Barbra Streisand effect” if an injunction was sought to stop him posting online about his dispute with the airline.
The airline’s company secretary, Méabh Gallagher, was giving evidence as the company opened its defence of whistleblower penalisation and unfair dismissal against Aer Lingus Ltd by sacked airline captain Tom O’Riordan before the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) this week.
Mr O’Riordan’s complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against Aer Lingus Ltd are all denied by the airline.
Mr O’Riordan was dismissed from his €153,00-a-year job last September after what Aer Lingus’s legal team has called “a campaign of disruption” by the former passenger jet captain. It included the alleged posting of “falsehoods and untruths” on social media, a picket on its offices, and a hunger strike.
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His lawyers say he should have been shielded by the laws on whistleblower protection. The airline’s barrister said its former captain “defamed Aer Lingus in the postings” and committed “wrongdoing that can never be protected”.
Mr O’Riordan’s barrister, David Byrnes BL, told the WRC that Mr O’Riordan and his first officer were instructed to fly an empty Airbus A320 passenger jet, EI-DEN, from London’s Heathrow airport to Dublin Airport on a repositioning flight on 5th June, 2023.
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He submitted that after-engine fumes were noticed on the same aircraft the day before, it appeared there were engine works carried out at Heathrow, and that Mr O’Riordan was “told the aircraft was fine”.
“On approach [into Dublin] there were fumes identified by the crew. Fortunately, the plane landed without incident. My client was shifted by ambulance to Beaumont Hospital and spent five days under the care of a neurological team,” he said.
“My client attributes that to the noxious fumes he was exposed to on the flight,” he said. The complainant never returned to work prior to his dismissal in September 2024, following three disciplinary processes over his online posts, the WRC has heard.
Aer Lingus’s director of safety and security Conor Nolan told the tribunal it was later determined that one of the jet’s engines required a repair that had to be done “off the wing”, in what he agreed was a “quite rare” event.
The tribunal heard that in the summer of 2024, amid a series of escalating disciplinary processes against Mr O’Riordan concerning posts on social media, Ms Gallagher – Aer Lingus’s company secretary and data protection officer – wrote to him stating that he “published the personal data of colleagues” online without authorisation.
“If you do not remove or delete [the posts] without delay Aer Lingus will consider all options up to and including legal action,” the letter of July 1st, 2024, read.
Cross-examining Ms Gallagher, Mr Byrnes asked her whether there had been “a discussion had about injuncting” his client under the Data Protection Act.
“No,” the witness said. “It’s the ‘Barbra Streisand effect’. If you send an injunction to take down material, you shine a spotlight on it. We asked him, and filed a complaint to the Data Protection Commission,” she said.
Mr Byrnes said her letter had been a “baseless threat” as no legal action had been brought against Mr O’Riordan, and the witness confirmed there had been no legal action.
Mr Byrnes said her allegations of a data breach were “nothing more than a bare assertion” since she had not kept copies of the posts.
“You’re a solicitor of 20 years’ standing. Are you in the habit of making allegations ... without any supporting evidence?” counsel asked.
“There was supporting evidence, I went on LinkedIn and saw it,” the witness said.
Mr Byrnes was instructed by solicitor Setanta Landers for the complainant in the case. Tom Mallon BL was instructed by Katie Rooney of Arthur Cox for the airline.
The case continues on Thursday.
