A veteran Siptu official who claimed she was penalised for blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing at a senior level in the organisation has lost her case at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
Ger Malone, a long-standing organiser with the union, had claimed she was “conspired against” when she was voted out of her position as chair of Siptu’s staff representative council after blowing the whistle on what she termed “a litany of wrongdoings” at the trade union and in local government.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) rejected her case in a 76-page decision document published on its website over the bank holiday weekend. It follows 11 days of hearings on the case in Waterford and Carlow between April 2024 and February 2025.
“Everything I had believed in just came crashing down, it was like somebody pulled my soul out of me… I felt overwhelmed by power [and] found myself in a scenario where I had very little in terms of support apart from my very good colleagues,” she told a hearing last year.
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She said penalisation “rapidly increased” after that, complaining that she had received a series of letters from union bosses which included criticism of her handling of a case and questioned her ability to follow instruction, handle her workload, and her “ability to navigate strategy”.
She said these were all “absolute nonsense”. In all, she identified 30 separate acts of alleged penalisation in response to 17 alleged protected disclosures dating back to February 2020.
Ms Malone had stated at a meeting in August 2020 that Siptu management was engaged in “control, cronyism and bullying” – and that union staff were “really burnt out” and “struggling with mental health”.
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“[Ms Malone] disclosed that the management was engaging in anti-union practices and the result of their treatment of staff, particularly female staff, was disgraceful and contrary to what the respondent purports to stand for,” Ms Malone’s legal submission stated.
“Activists and members were being abused while [Ms Malone] and other staff were not getting support and were not trained or equipped to deal with such vicious hostility.
“Management in the community and local authorities were acting with impunity,” leaving the standing industrial mechanisms “ineffective and no longer fit for purpose,” Ms Malone told the meeting, the submission stated.
She also said that “activists and members were angry, and many have no trust in [Siptu]” – going on to add that the trade union was “on the verge of a ‘me too’ moment”, her legal submission added.
WRC adjudicator Marie Flynn concluded that Ms Malone made protected disclosures on five occasions between August 2020 and August 2022, starting with that meeting.
Siptu official Karan O’Loughlin, submitted that Ms Malone’s account of that meeting was “vociferously disputed” by the trade union and that it formed part of negotiations on collective staff grievances. The union accepted that this and two other matters were protected disclosures, but denied that any penalisation followed.
Adjudication officer Marie Flynn rejected Ms Malone’s position that 12 other events amounted to protected acts. These matters ranged from meetings and internal correspondence with senior Siptu officials to public speeches and media interviews.
Since there was no time extension granted, the first 19 allegations of penalisation by Ms Malone were excluded from the inquiry.
Assessing the remaining 11 allegations of victimisation individually, Ms Flynn wrote of each that it was “not an act of penalisation within the meaning of the Act”.
Among the alleged acts of penalisation, Ms Malone had claimed she had been undermined in her work. She said a senior official had blocked a courier from bringing whistles, high-visibility jackets and megaphone from union stocks to Ms Malone’s home on one occasion. Siptu said the senior official had done so because he planned to drive down with the material himself.
The tribunal heard there had been a dispute between Ms Malone and her superiors about the wording of a petition in June and July 2022. Ms Flynn concluded that Ms Malone had “bypassed” the union’s legal rights unit about the wording of the material and determined there was no penalisation in relation to that or a number of other issues.
Ms Malone had applied for an extension of jurisdiction back in time by the tribunal, arguing had she only had a “belated realisation that she was being penalised for making protected disclosures”. However, Ms Flynn wrote that she found it “difficult to accept” Ms Malone would not recognise that she was being allegedly penalised, as she was a “very experienced trade union official”.
The adjudicator found no detriment to Ms Malone in the running of a staff representative election either. Ms Malone had claimed that Siptu “abandoned” protocol because it was planning to “get rid” of her. However, Ms Flynn concluded that the union had either refuted Ms Malone’s assertions about the election entirely, or “provided a reasonable defence of the actions it took”.
The fact that Ms Malone’s name did not appear in the union’s in-house newsletter in connection with a protest could not be blamed on Siptu management given that the publication was compiled by officials and activists, Ms Flynn added.
In one of the instances Ms Flynn wrote that Ms Malone’s line manager meeting management at a local authority while Ms Malone was on leave “would appear to represent an undermining of her”.
However, the adjudicator said it was “not unreasonable” for the senior official to attempt to resolve the dispute in question after being asked to step in by the workers.
In her decision, Ms Flynn also noted that Ms Malone’s claim was brought to the WRC in November 2022, before amendments were made to the Protected Disclosures Act earlier that year.
The amended legislation, which is now in force, removed the evidential burden of linking a protected disclosure to any alleged detriment suffered by a claimant and put the onus on the respondent to disprove it. However, Ms Flynn noted that she heard the case under the law that was in force at the time Ms Malone’s case was lodged.
