The former chief executive of a State agency had suicidal thoughts and was suffering from work-related stress, a specialist commissioned by the organisation has told an employment tribunal.<\/p>\n
Giving evidence at the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> on Monday, Dr Deirdre Gleeson, a specialist occupational physician said Inland Fisheries Ireland<\/a> (IFI) was unhappy she had found stress experienced by Francis O\u2019Donnell was work related and that he should be included in the organisation\u2019s enhanced sick-leave scheme.<\/p>\n However, she said IFI had not sought her to change or amend a report she had drawn up following consultations with O\u2019Donnell in 2024.<\/p>\n O\u2019Donnell is claiming in his WRC case that he was unfairly dismissed by IFI and was penalised after making protected disclosures. This is denied by the organisation.<\/p>\n Gleeson said O\u2019Donnell told her he had had suicidal thoughts and a gun in his shed at a consultation in February 2024. However, at the time of the meeting these had passed and he was full of hope of recovery.<\/p>\n However, she said when she met him again in March 2024 his condition had deteriorated. She believed he was clinically depressed.<\/p>\n Gleeson said IFI had asked her a series of questions which included whether O\u2019Donnell was suffering from work-related stress, whether he qualified for sick pay under the agency\u2019s occupational leave scheme, whether he was fit to return to work and whether he was fit to engage with his employer.<\/p>\n Gleeson said she had told IFI that O\u2019Donnell was experiencing work-related stress and should qualify for the sick-leave scheme.<\/p>\n Gleeson said when she met O\u2019Donnell again in April 2024 he told her IFI \u201cdo not believe your report\u201d.<\/p>\n She said she subsequently had a call from the then head of human resources at IFI. She said IFI was not satisfied with her opinion that O\u2019Donnell had a work-related illness.<\/p>\n Gleeson said she understood IFI was scheduled to appear before the D\u00e1il<\/a> Public Accounts Committee<\/a> (PAC) and the chief executive would not be in a position to attend. She said she believed the PAC could be an intimidatory environment and that not enough welfare support was provided to those who had to appear. Gleeson said, in her opinion, O\u2019Donnell was clinically depressed as a result of an occupational situation and was not fit for work.<\/p>\n Counsel for IFI Tiernan Lowey asked Gleeson if she had been informed before she wrote her report that earlier in March 2024 O\u2019Donnell had been informed he would face disciplinary proceedings arising from an external investigation into complaints made against him. Gleeson said she had not been aware. <\/p>\n Gleeson also accepted that while her report may not have been considered helpful to IFI she had not been asked to change her findings. <\/p>\n Separately, the hearing heard that O\u2019Donnell told his former executive assistant that a former IFI chairman had warned him he would face a motion of no confidence at the next board meeting unless a suspended employee was reinstated.<\/p>\n Pauline McNulty said she heard raised voices at a meeting between O\u2019Donnell and the then IFI chairman in its office in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, in April 2022. <\/p>\n She said following the meeting the former chief executive \u201clooked extremely unwell\u201d.<\/p>\n She said O\u2019Donnell later told her the chairman wanted him to reinstate a member of staff who had been suspended.<\/p>\n She maintained O\u2019Donnell had told her that if the person was not reinstated \u201che [the chairman] was going to go for a vote of no confidence at the next board meeting\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cThe chair had said to him [O\u2019Donnell] that you may win the battle but you will not win the war,\u201d McNulty said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former chief executive of a State agency had suicidal thoughts and was suffering from work-related stress, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,4767,18,19,9762,17,17419,81],"class_list":["post-573749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dail-eireann","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-inland-fisheries-ireland","tag-ireland","tag-public-accounts-committee","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116880161533777290","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573749","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=573749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}