The founder of Astronomy Ireland has now been attached to an employment rights claim by a former manager who has accused him of “pocketing” money intended for the science organisation.
A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator said on Wednesday that he had decided David Moore and three members of the Astronomy Ireland management committee will be joined as respondents in a claim for constructive dismissal and further alleged rights breaches by the employee, Sonya Martin.
The adjudicator paused hearing Ms Martin’s evidence last year to consider who was answerable to the statutory claims. Mr Moore had informed him Astronomy Ireland’s status as an unincorporated society was “complicated” and “iffy in law”.
Ms Martin worked at Astronomy Ireland’s office in Ballycoolin, Dublin 15 between 2021 and 2023. Last year, she told the WRC in evidence that she had no choice but to resign in July 2023 after Mr Moore told her the club had no board during a “heated” meeting. Since she had applied for grants on the basis that it did have a board, she said she believed she was being made “party to a fraud on the State”.
It followed months of mounting workplace stress while she was covering additional duties after the sacking of a junior employee who was alleged to have stolen cash and left “faecal matter” and “ejaculate” behind him in a bathroom at Astronomy Ireland’s office block, she told the WRC.
She said when a member of the management committee complained about the organisation’s cash reserves, a junior administrator, Nicole Doyle, looked into the matter and discovered that fees paid to Astronomy Ireland to provide a speaker at various engagements had not been going into the organisation for a number of years.
“David was taking the money and pocketing it as his own income, as opposed to it going back into the society,” Ms Martin said.
Mr Moore later said there was “no money going astray” and “no financial irregularities”. He also said: “We’ve been libelled, in my opinion.”
At a tribunal hearing on Wednesday, adjudicator Jim Dolan told Mr Moore: “Your name has to be joined as a respondent because of the unincorporated status [of the club]”.
“Do you have any objection to your name being joined to Astronomy Ireland?” he asked Mr Moore.
Mr Moore said: “Yes. It’s a team of a very large number of people; it goes back a long way, and some have passed away.”
Mr Dolan put it to Mr Moore that he was an “officer of the company”. Mr Moore accepted this but said his role was “only as editor of the magazine” and referred to a management committee.
Asked to give the names of the management committee, Mr Moore said it comprised himself, the organisation’s treasurer and two others.
Mr Moore objected to the matter proceeding on Wednesday and said he was “shocked” to be told there had been a case management meeting in November 2024, which he had not attended. “I wasn’t notified,” he said.
Ms Martin’s barrister, Alan Crann, and her solicitor, Daniel O’Connell of Keans Solicitors, said the hearing notification had been sent out by email in the same manner as the previous hearing in June 2024.
“I didn’t get one,” Mr Moore said. He went on to say: “Emails are a bit unreliable,” telling the WRC that Astronomy Ireland had brought in a consultant to look at its email system and that it was a “complicated issue”.
“Emails are not a complicated issue,” Mr O’Connell said. Mr Moore disagreed. When Mr O’Connell said that notice of the previous hearing had also been sent by post, Mr Moore said: “The post is unreliable.”
After further exchanges, Mr Dolan told the parties: “If Mr Moore says he didn’t receive the notification, I don’t have an alternative but to accept that. Ms Martin, I apologise to you, but I don’t think we can have a hearing today.”
He said: “I had made a decision in relation to the issue: that was to join an individual or individuals to the name of Astronomy Ireland, because in an unincorporated body, say a golf club for example, it’s either the officers, or failing that it’s every member. According to your website, you’ve about 15,000 members.”
“Not all are paid up,” Mr Moore said.
Mr Dolan directed Mr Moore to give him contact details for the three members of the management committee he had identified as officers of the club and said he would seek a new hearing date early in March.
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