The legal actions centre on Sean Power, a 28-year-old director and co-owner of the Ennis Specsavers store in Co Clare<\/a>.<\/p>\n Power alleges he has been wrongly targeted by the company after he assisted the Rathmines, Dublin, branch of Specsavers handle an investigation by Ireland Specsavers Ltd, the Irish arm of the \u20ac4 billion global retail giant whose headquarters are in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. <\/p>\n Power, whose mother also runs Specsavers stores in Limerick, was on course to take on a second outlet in Cork before he fell out with the company. Specsavers concedes his Ennis store makes \u201chundreds of thousands of euro profits\u201d each year and is \u201cextremely successful\u201d.<\/p>\n Among the complaints that Power has made is that Specsavers is allegedly involved in tax evasion by transferring to a Guernsey bank account millions of euro collected from Irish stores for marketing. <\/p>\n Power claims that a 5 per cent charge on turnover for each store that is supposed to be ring-fenced for marketing was instead used to pay a \u20ac81 million dividend to an entity in Guernsey controlled by Specsavers founders Doug and Mary Perkins. <\/p>\n Specsavers denies any impropriety and alleges that Power has wrongly used his access to Specsavers\u2019 internal systems to download large amounts of confidential financial information that he has misrepresented to others.<\/p>\n Specsavers alleges Power started making complaints after an investigation was launched into the Ennis store in late 2024 that raised concerns about claimed expenses of \u20ac27,000.<\/p>\n Among the concerns raised by this report were expenses relating to an Ultimate Fighting Championship<\/a> (UFC) event in Manchester, a flight from Florida to London, Ticketmaster<\/a> expenditure and expenses paid to Ciara Neville, who is one of Ireland\u2019s top sprinters<\/a> and is Power\u2019s girlfriend.<\/p>\n Power denies any wrongdoing and said he paid for the UFC expense. <\/p>\n Frank Clarke, the former chief justice, was retained by Specsavers as an independent adjudicator to assess the concerns about expenses, but his investigation is on hold due to the legal cases. <\/p>\n The cases were heard \u2013 and the allegations and counter-allegations aired \u2013 over four days in the High Court before Judge Miche\u00e1l D O\u2019Connell in recent weeks with the last hearing on Wednesday. <\/p>\n This was a preliminary hearing in advance of a full trial, which both parties say they hope will begin in July. <\/p>\n Specsavers is seeking an order to prevent Power retaining what it says are trade secrets that he wrongfully downloaded. <\/p>\n It is also seeking an order compelling Power and his business partner John O\u2019Farrell to sell their shares for \u20ac956,000 each, which it says it is entitled to do under their shareholder agreement.<\/p>\n Power, who has secured injunctions in the Circuit Court preventing his removal by Specsavers, says he is a whistleblower who has made protected disclosures and cannot be punished for his actions. He has made 61 claimed protected disclosures.<\/p>\n Power has complained that Specsavers raised concerns about payments to Neville, who works in his store, as a way of intimidating him. He claims that issues were also raised about the employment of the wife of his business partner, O\u2019Farrell, and O\u2019Farrell\u2019s 18-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n Power complained that Specsavers trawled Neville\u2019s Instagram account and needlessly introduced into court filings photographs of her in a bikini.<\/p>\n Power, who is representing himself in the litigation between the parties, complained that Neville was \u201csingled out\u201d by Specsavers as someone who was \u201ccriminally given a gift card\u201d. He said the allegations were unfounded as Neville had worked for Ennis Specsavers since November 2023. <\/p>\n The Ennis manager read out a letter he wrote last August to Specsavers\u2019 owners, Doug and Mary Perkins, and their son John, who is the chief executive of the optician chain, complaining about Specsavers introducing photographs of Neville in her bikini into evidence.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was done to Ciara Neville was not just inappropriate, it was degrading and morally indefensible,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n He wrote, in a letter read out in court, that instead of Neville being celebrated for becoming the Irish 100m champion in 2025, \u201cher body was used as a weapon by a senior member of this business in a court of law, without notice, relevance or decency\u201d.<\/p>\n He complained that images of Neville were taken from her Instagram from a time before she worked for Specsavers. Pictures were also taken from the Instagram account of her friend Sharlene Mawdsley<\/a>, an Irish 400m runner.<\/p>\n Marcus Dowling, for the Specsavers companies, said pictures of Neville were gathered by a professional company in a forensic way to show that when she was supposed to be working \u201cit seemed that she was a full-time athlete and abroad\u201d.<\/p>\n The barrister said there was \u201ca narrative, a series of dates and social media posts to back up those dates\u201d. He said Neville \u201chas a public profile, she is a public figure\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"Specsavers](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/T46EGBNNM5BXLCWUTEBYC7EFVM.jpg\")
Specsavers Ennis store director Sean Power. Photograph: Clare FM <\/p>\n![\"Ciara](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ESP6KCQ4CRGQ3LJQ4O5NZIRUBE.jpg\")
Ciara Neville wins the women\u2019s 60m final at the Athletics Ireland National Indoor Championships last March. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/INPHO <\/p>\n