The secretary of a Dublin golf club was warned of the risk of being prosecuted for perjury after admitting the book he tried to use to swear a religious oath was not the Holy Bible. <\/p>\n
It happened in an online Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) hearing on Wednesday into an unfair dismissal complaint against Skerries Golf Club in Co Dublin by part-time cleaner Donna Ashe. The complaint was brought under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.<\/p>\n
Ms Ashe, a mother-of-one caring for an adult daughter with a disability, was earning \u20ac12.70 an hour for an 18-hour work week, spread over four days, when she was let go in October 2024. <\/p>\n
Adjudicating officer Conor Stokes began the online hearing by explaining to the parties that WRC hearings were public, sworn evidence was required and a witness could be prosecuted for perjury if they gave false evidence. <\/p>\n
Mr Stokes first administered a secular affirmation to the complainant, Ms Ashe. The golf club\u2019s honorary secretary, businessman Donnacha Neary, said he wished to take a religious oath. <\/p>\n
The adjudication officer said the witness would need a Holy Bible for the oath and asked whether he had one. Mr Neary then held up a black book. <\/p>\n
\u201cSorry, I\u2019m just seeing a book, I\u2019m not seeing it\u2019s a Bible,\u201d Mr Stokes said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a black book,\u201d Mr Neary said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not seeing that it\u2019s titled \u2018Bible\u2019. Can you open up the Bible to show me it\u2019s a Bible?\u201d the adjudicator asked. <\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot. I don\u2019t have a bible here,\u201d Mr Neary said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen make the affirmation, it makes absolutely no odds to me,\u201d Mr Stokes said. <\/p>\n
Mr Neary then said he would give evidence \u201cunder affirmation\u201d. <\/p>\n
Mr Stokes said: \u201cYou understand what I said to you about telling me the truth? You do understand that if you don\u2019t tell me the truth, you could be pursued under the Perjury Act?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do,\u201d Mr Neary replied. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf in future I ask you a question, I expect and demand the truth,\u201d Mr Stokes said. He then proceeded to administer the secular affirmations to Mr Neary. <\/p>\n
Mr Neary gave evidence that a club finance subcommittee, on which he sat, had concluded there was a potential cost saving of \u20ac7,500 a year to the club by replacing the cleaners with a serviced contract. <\/p>\n
The worker\u2019s barrister, Christian Douglas BL, produced a club document listing the \u201dbenefits\u201d of outsourcing, which included \u201cmore accountability on the standards of cleanliness\u201d, he said. He put it to Mr Neary that it was not correct for him to suggest the standard of cleaning was not a factor in the redundancies. <\/p>\n
Mr Neary said changing to a third-party operator would give the volunteer in charge of the clubhouse \u2013 a \u201cretired gentleman\u201d \u2013 a \u201cmore direct\u201d path to address cleaning matters. \u201cThey can raise matters with one phone call,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Mr Douglas quoted to the tribunal a WhatsApp group message from a club committee member to Ms Ashe and the other cleaner in May 2024. In it, \u201ccobwebs and insect nests\u201d in the clubhouse porch were complained about ahead of a Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) function. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you both continue with this standard of cleaning, we will have to get new cleaners,\u201d the message concluded. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have to put it to you the work of the complainant was, in fact, an issue and one of the benefits of redundancy was getting rid of the complainant,\u201d Mr Douglas said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIncorrect,\u201d Mr Neary replied. He said the text exchange had been in May and the two cleaners were later invited to come to a meeting to discuss improved cleaning. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt no time was this dismissal triggered as a result of a performance issue,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The tribunal heard Mr Neary texted Ms Ashe calling her to an \u201cat-risk meeting\u201d, which took place on September 16th, 2024. She said she \u201cdidn\u2019t know what it meant\u201d ahead of time. <\/p>\n
When it had been put to Mr Neary that Ms Ashe \u201cdidn\u2019t even know she was coming to a redundancy consultation meeting\u201d, Mr Neary said: \u201cI don\u2019t know what more I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Ashe\u2019s second and final meeting with Mr Neary on September 27th, when she was to be made redundant, lasted five minutes, the complainant said. \u201cMr Neary had told me there was overheads, but I wasn\u2019t told I could have my hours reduced,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Mr Neary put it to her in cross-examination that she had the opportunity to \u201craise any questions or concerns\u201d at the September meeting. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t ask me that, no, Mr Neary,\u201d the complainant said. <\/p>\n
The adjudicator asked her whether she had proposed alternatives to redundancy at this meeting. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t Mr Stokes. The decision was made. I don\u2019t know how I could have asked when the decision was made,\u201d Ms Ashe said. <\/p>\n
Mr Neary, in a closing submission, said it was a \u201cgenuine redundancy arising from a structural business decision to outsource the cleaning function\u201d. Any \u201cprocedural shortcomings . . . did not undermine the genuineness of the redundancy\u201d. <\/p>\n
Mr Douglas described it as \u201ca sham redundancy \u2013 a dismissal as a result of her performance and the cleaners\u2019 performance in general”. <\/p>\n
He added: \u201cNot only was it a sham redundancy; the process leading to that redundancy was grossly unfair.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mr Stokes is to give his decision in writing at a later date. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The secretary of a Dublin golf club was warned of the risk of being prosecuted for perjury after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[12767,79,18,17590,2527,147185,147184,789,19,42101,17,5428,34659,12808,520,3119,32294,119,147186,147187,17135,64259,59687,14529],"class_list":{"0":"post-296597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-black","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-equipment","12":"tag-golf","13":"tag-golf-club","14":"tag-golf-driver-cap","15":"tag-horizontal","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-individual-sports","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-iron","20":"tag-light","21":"tag-luxury","22":"tag-morning","23":"tag-new","24":"tag-set","25":"tag-sport","26":"tag-sports-and-fitness","27":"tag-sports-backgrounds","28":"tag-sun","29":"tag-sunlight","30":"tag-sunset","31":"tag-tree"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115935625333095004","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296597","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=296597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}