Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) found it had no jurisdiction to hear a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 by Frank Purcell against the holy order of friars.<\/p>\nPurcell had spent 16 years volunteering at the church when, in October 2024, he was \u201csummarily dismissed without any reason or basis and without any investigation being held into any issues involved and without the right of appeal or notice\u201d, his representative told the WRC.<\/p>\n
The order\u2019s legal team submitted that it followed \u201ca complaint made by churchgoers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Frank McDonnell of the Limerick Council of Trade Unions said Purcell \u201cmade a disclosure to the order that there was some not-nice people going to arrive selling fake relics and there was an altercation at the back of the church during Mass.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Purcell was very badly treated by a religious order, after giving them 16 loyal years of service, [there was] no explanation of what he was doing wrong. He was sacked for doing his job.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Monaghan, for the order, objected to this submission.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe turned up seven days a week and twice on Sunday. He felt obliged to warn the order that these rogues were coming in,\u201d McDonnell further submitted.<\/p>\n
It was submitted that a senior church official, an Augustinian provincial, had given a direction that Purcell was to \u201cstep down\u201d, a message given to him by the local prior in Limerick.<\/p>\n
Monaghan said that Purcell\u2019s WRC complaint form stated his gross weekly wages to be \u201c\u20ac0.00\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere there is no consideration \u2026 there can be no employment,\u201d said Monaghan, arguing Purcell had no standing to pursue the employment rights complaint.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s obvious he\u2019s contributed to the church over many years. He\u2019s the best interests of the church at heart, trying to deal with certain issues he\u2019s alleged and pointed out over the years, but I\u2019m not convinced this is an employment issue,\u201d said adjudication officer Peter O\u2019Brien at the hearing.<\/p>\n
In his decision, published on Friday by the WRC, O\u2019Brien wrote there was no evidence that any contract of employment had been entered into between the parties.<\/p>\n
He found Purcell had no legal standing to pursue the complaint and dismissed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A veteran security volunteer who claimed he was ousted by the Augustinian Order for warning that certain \u201crogues\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[14871,102067,28976,2584,40566,24676,9307,14872,27125,94414,27126,69779,259277,198321,66564,154384,2597,18,250784,215326,4649,156149,226586,598,19,27130,17,42056,5989,253445,259278,14881,24242,12124,28824,11580,57270,432,201793,259279,2459,5874,259280,259281,44082,9414,132,101514,43778,43779,2615,259282,259283,167792],"class_list":["post-614585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-backgrounds","tag-bible","tag-blue","tag-book","tag-catholicism","tag-christianity","tag-church","tag-close-up","tag-color-image","tag-concepts","tag-copy-space","tag-cross","tag-cross-shape","tag-crucifix","tag-cult","tag-easter","tag-education","tag-eire","tag-forgiveness","tag-god","tag-gospel","tag-heaven","tag-holy-book","tag-ideas","tag-ie","tag-indoors","tag-ireland","tag-jesus-christ","tag-learning","tag-light-natural-phenomenon","tag-new-testament","tag-no-people","tag-open","tag-opening","tag-page","tag-paper","tag-part-of","tag-photography","tag-praying","tag-psalms","tag-reading","tag-religion","tag-religious-symbol","tag-religious-text","tag-selective-focus","tag-spirituality","tag-sports","tag-still-life","tag-symbol","tag-table","tag-text","tag-toned-image","tag-two-objects","tag-wood-material"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614585","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=614585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}