A firefighter who accused Meath County Council of a “whitewash” investigation into bullying complaints he made against a senior officer has lost a claim for constructive dismissal he hoped would secure him a new post in the county fire service.
Former soldier Laurence Farrell, a retained firefighter from 2015 to 2021, had said his complaints about verbal abuse and bullying by a now retired station officer and exclusionary treatment were not dealt with by the county council, leaving him with no option except to quit.
Denying the complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, the council told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on Friday that the allegations were dealt with in line with the national statutory code on workplace bullying.
In June 2023, Mr Farrell gave evidence on a series of disagreements with the former station officer at Nobber Fire Station.
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It started when he complained after opening a medical bag at the scene of a road traffic crash during one of his first call-outs to find bandages and other first aid gear between seven and 10 years out of date, he said.
Mr Farrell described further disagreements with his station officer over being paid for going to a truck driving course, and later being prevented from going to courses.
“He got very aggressive and screamed at me: ‘You’ve shot yourself in both feet. You’ve done yourself some serious damage,’” Mr Farrell said of one such occasion.
Meath Fire Service witnesses who gave evidence said the training lists were drawn up by officers in headquarters and not by station officers.
Mr Farrell also told the WRC that the retired station officer later failed to process his wage claims for three months, until in early 2020 he took his forms from Nobber and brought them to Navan to submit directly at the fire service headquarters.
Mr Farrell said he finally had to go on sick leave.
Siptu official Dave Curran said the council’s dignity at work policy required a formal investigation but that this had not been done.
“[HR] never even interviewed any witnesses, they never asked anybody else but them two people, they just tried to whitewash it,” Mr Farrell said.
Amanda Kane of the Local Government Management Authority, who appeared for the council, said it had resolved Mr Farrell’s bullying complaint using the informal process set out in its procedures rather than the formal investigation procedure cited by Mr Curran.
The informal process found no evidence that the behaviour Mr Farrell had complained of “met the threshold” for bullying and the matter did not progress to the formal process, Ms Kane said.
Ms Kane added that there is “no automatic entitlement” to a formal investigation under the policy.
Adjudicator Maria Kelly found the HR manager “did fully investigate” Mr Farrell’s complaints.
“I am satisfied that the respondent did take the complaints seriously, did investigate in line with their procedure, and recommended a route to resolve the complaints in a constructive way,” she wrote.
She found that Mr Farrell quit without completing a recommended series of meetings aimed at resolving the issues with the station officer, and he “had not exhausted” internal processes. His employer “acted reasonably” in the circumstances.
