Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Daniel  Okroj

Prestige Signs Ltd.

Representatives

Tiernan Lowey BL instructed by Regan O'Driscoll Simmons & Simmons (Ireland) LLP

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Schedule 2 of the Protected Disclosures Act, 2014

CA-00073904-001

29/07/2025

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent in August 2022 and held the position of Drawing Office Supervisor. His employment ended following a disciplinary process which culminated in his dismissal on 25 April 2025, which he stated was as a result of protected disclosures he had made.

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent in August 2022 and held the position of Drawing Office Supervisor. His employment ended following a disciplinary process which culminated in his dismissal on 25 April 2025 and which he stated was as a result of protected disclosures he had made.

The Complainant relied upon two communications which he stated constituted protected disclosures. The first was an email of 19 February 2025 to the Respondent's HR Manager, concerning a colleague who, according to the Complainant, attended work displaying symptoms of illness and refused either to wear a mask or leave the workplace. The email referred to sections 8 and 13 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, asserted that the Respondent failed to provide a safe workplace, and requested specific remedial measures and a review of health and safety procedures.

The second was a report made to the Health and Safety Authority on 28 March 2025, in which the Complainant complained of ongoing breaches of health and safety laws and guidelines and stated that workplace conditions posed a risk to employees and their families.

The Complainant submitted that shortly after making the disclosure to the HSA, he became the subject of a disciplinary process while on sick leave and was subsequently dismissed, and that the disciplinary process and dismissal amounted to penalisation for having made protected disclosures. He pointed to the proximity between the external disclosure and the disciplinary process as evidence that the disciplinary allegations were used as a pretext to remove him.

The Respondent stated that the February 2025 complaint did not amount to a protected disclosure. It was asserted that the colleague concerned was not unfit for work, had returned a negative Covid test, and was not regarded as presenting a danger to other employees, and that the Complainant had been offered the opportunity to work separately from the colleague and had declined that option. It was also disputed that the report made to the Health and Safety Authority on 28 March 2025 constituted a protected disclosure as the Complainant had not provided specific examples of health and safety issues that needed to be addressed.

The Respondent asserted that the dismissal arose entirely from an unrelated matter: on 14 March 2025 the Complainant was involved in a workplace incident and admitted making threatening remarks towards a colleague. A complaint was made, an investigation was conducted, a disciplinary hearing followed, and the Complainant was dismissed for gross misconduct. The Respondent denied any causal connection between the disclosures and the dismissal.

Preliminary Issue:

Before addressing the substantive complaint, I must first determine whether it is properly brought under section 12(1) of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014.

Section 12(1) prohibits an employer from penalising or threatening to penalise an employee for having made a protected disclosure. Section 12(2), however, provides that subsection (1) does not apply to the dismissal of an employee. It is clear from the Act that penalisation falling short of dismissal is remedied through a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission under section 12 and Schedule 2, while dismissal said to result wholly or mainly from the making of a protected disclosure is remedied as an unfair dismissal under section 6(2)(ba) of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, as inserted by the 2014 Act.

The Court of Appeal has addressed the point directly in Hosford v The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection [2024] IECA 294. Hyland J, having set out the text of section 12, held that section 6(2)(ba) of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, as amended, "provides for the case where an employee alleges dismissal, including constructive dismissal, on the basis of the making of a protected disclosure," and that, accordingly, "s.12(1) is about penalisation short of dismissal." Hyland J concluded that where an employee complains that they were unfairly dismissed, whether by outright dismissal or constructive dismissal, due to the making of a protected disclosure, "an employee should invoke the UDA rather than s.12(1)."

That is also the case here. The Complainant does not allege penalisation falling short of dismissal; he alleges that his dismissal was itself the penalisation. Applying Hosford, the correct statutory vehicle for that complaint is section 6(2)(ba) of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, not section 12(1) of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014.

Considering the foregoing, I find that I do not have jurisdiction to uphold this complaint of penalisation under section 12(1) given that the alleged penalisation is the fact of dismissal itself.

I have no jurisdiction in this case for the reasons set out above.