{"id":113956,"date":"2025-10-10T18:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T18:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/113956\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T18:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T18:46:07","slug":"central-bank-manager-fired-investigator-who-complained-to-hr-about-him-wrc-told-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/113956\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Bank manager fired investigator who complained to HR about him, WRC told \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Central Bank<\/a> manager acted without authority when he fired a forensic investigator after learning that she had made a complaint against him, a lawyer for the dismissed worker is set to argue before a tribunal.<\/p>\n

The employee, Nigar Babayeva, is pursuing complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the Central Bank of Ireland at the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC). <\/p>\n

Outline details of the dispute were disclosed at a public hearing for the first time on Friday during legal argument. It follows an application last year by the Central Bank\u2019s lawyers to have the case heard behind closed doors. <\/p>\n

Niamh McGowan BL, appearing instructed by Emmet Whelan of Byrne Wallace solicitors for the Central Bank, pointed out that that Ms Babayeva\u2019s solicitors had filed two different complaint forms with the WRC giving two different termination dates in two distinct complaints under the unfair dismissals legislation \u2013 one in July 2023, and another in July 2024. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t run a case saying one date and then the other date,\u201d Ms McGowan said. She said the complainant had alleged that the Central Bank had committed whistleblower penalisation because of the time taken to consider Ms Babayeva\u2019s appeal of the termination of her probation. <\/p>\n

She said the probation appeals process had only been delayed to allow for an internal investigation under the Central Bank\u2019s protected disclosure procedures. \u201cThey had to be investigated before any conclusion could be reasoned on appeal,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese are inconsistent and I say incoherent claims which the WRC has no jurisdiction to hear,\u201d Ms McGowan told the tribunal. She said the jurisdictional matter should be determined first.<\/p>\n

Ms Babayeva\u2019s solicitor, Setanta Landers, said: \u201cI know it looks confusing, but the filings need to be set in context. Ms Babayeva made complaints to HR [human resources] about ill treatment by a particular manager. That communication was shared, we will say, with that manager by HR. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat manager, who was not her contractual manager or overseer, fired her himself whilst she was on sick leave, and without, we say, contractual authority, so there\u2019s a real question as to whether she was terminated,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the grounds of appeal was his authority to dismiss her. She was managed by him, but contractually she didn\u2019t report to him. We opened up a protected disclosure about the handling of her complaint \u2013 it was handed to HR, handed back to that manager, who terminated her,\u201d Mr Landers said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe filed a claim under the Protected Disclosures Act within six months of her purported termination and then we had to wait until the appeal was heard,\u201d he said. He said the appeal was \u201cheld in abeyance\u201d until June 2024 and the outcome issued the following month. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is only at that date, we say, the penalisation crystallised, because all the issues we\u2019d raised were not considered and were refused to be considered. There is a real question as to whether 2023 or 2024 was the correct date of termination. That will have to be teased out,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Ms McGowan said the extent of the adjudicator\u2019s jurisdiction to inquire into the matter had to be limited by reference to the date of termination and the date of the complaints being filed. \u201cIf legal submissions are required … I say you\u2019re not entitled to hear that evidence,\u201d she told adjudicator Orla Jones. <\/p>\n

Mark Harty SC, who was instructed for the complainant in the matter by Mr Landers, said: \u201cI think it is a different thing to say you can\u2019t hear the claim at all, and you can\u2019t hear evidence. There is a valid claim before you,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI say you don\u2019t have jurisdiction in any of the complaints in November 2024,\u201d Ms McGowan said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI will say that\u2019s simply incorrect,\u201d Mr Harty countered. <\/p>\n

Ms Jones has adjourned the matter<\/p>\n

Last December, when the case was first called on, the adjudicator excluded the press from the hearing room, after Ms McGowan said she wanted to make an application for a \u201chearing in private\u201d and said: \u201cI wonder if we might do that absent a journalist.\u201d <\/p>\n

The parties have been granted six weeks for an exchange of legal submissions before the matter is listed again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Central Bank manager acted without authority when he fired a forensic investigator after learning that she had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,80,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-113956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-work","13":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}