A Central Bank manager acted without authority when he fired a forensic investigator after learning she had made a complaint against him, a lawyer for the dismissed worker is set to argue before a tribunal.
The employee, Nigar Babayeva, is pursuing complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the Central Bank of Ireland at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
Outline details of the dispute were disclosed at a public hearing for the first time on Friday during legal argument. It follows an application last year by the Central Bank’s lawyers to have the case heard behind closed doors.
Barrister Niamh McGowan, instructed by Emmet Whelan of Byrne Wallace solicitors for the Central Bank, pointed out that Ms Babayeva’s solicitors had filed two different complaint forms with the WRC giving two different termination dates in two distinct complaints under the unfair dismissals legislation – one in July 2023, and another in July 2024.
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“They can’t run a case saying one date and then the other date,” Ms McGowan said. She said the complainant had alleged that the Central Bank had committed whistleblower penalisation because of the time taken to consider Ms Babayeva’s appeal of the termination of her probation.
She said the probation appeals process had only been delayed to allow for an internal investigation under the Central Bank’s protected disclosure procedures. “They had to be investigated before any conclusion could be reasoned on appeal,” she said.
“These are inconsistent and I say incoherent claims which the WRC has no jurisdiction to hear,” Ms McGowan told the tribunal. She said the jurisdictional matter should be determined first.
Ms Babayeva’s solicitor, Setanta Landers, said: “I know it looks confusing, but the filings need to be set in context. Ms Babayeva made complaints to HR about ill treatment by a particular manager. That communication was shared, we will say, with that manager by HR.
“That manager, who was not her contractual manager or overseer, fired her himself whilst she was on sick leave, and without, we say, contractual authority, so there’s a real question as to whether she was terminated,” he said.
“One of the grounds of appeal was his authority to dismiss her. She was managed by him, but contractually she didn’t report to him. We opened up a protected disclosure about the handling of her complaint – it was handed to HR, handed back to that manager, who terminated her,” Mr Landers said.
He said a claim was filed under the Protected Disclosures Act within six months of her purported termination. The outcome was issued in July, 2024.
It is only at that date, we say, the penalisation crystallised, because all the issues we’d raised were not considered and were refused to be considered. There is a real question as to whether 2023 or 2024 was the correct date of termination. That will have to be teased out,” he said.
Ms McGowan said the extent of the adjudicator’s jurisdiction to inquire into the matter had to be limited by reference to the date of termination and the date of the complaints being filed. “If legal submissions are required ... I say you’re not entitled to hear that evidence,” she told adjudicator Orla Jones.
Mark Harty SC, instructed for the complainant, said: “I think it is a different thing to say you can’t hear the claim at all, and you can’t hear evidence. There is a valid claim before you.”
The sides disagreed about jurisdiction regarding complaints in November.
The parties have been granted six weeks for an exchange of legal submissions before the matter is listed again.
