A Luas supervisor who was sacked for sending an unauthorised e-mail to the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) has been awarded €14,000 by the Labour Court.
The court upheld a rights commissioner's finding that the traffic supervisor, who was sacked for "gross misconduct" in December 2004, had been unfairly dismissed.
The supervisor had sent an e-mail to the RPA the previous October about difficulties in the Dublin light rail system, without the knowledge of his employer, Connex Ltd.
Connex is a French company which operates Luas under a public-private partnership contract with the RPA, which owns the light rail network.
The rights commissioner, who had recommended compensation of €7,500, said Connex and the RPA were not rival organisations in competition with each other. Rather, they were two organisations who were trying to achieve a common end, namely the efficient operation of the Luas.
"In these circumstances I believe it was not unreasonable for the claimant to pass information to the RPA which he considered was helpful to achieving a common purpose."
Connex appealed the commissioner's finding of unfair dismissal, while the supervisor's union, Siptu, also appealed on the basis that the compensation award was insufficient.
Connex, which was represented at the court by the employers' body Ibec, said the e-mail sent to the RPA was specifically designed to highlight difficulties with Luas services. Following a disciplinary hearing he had been dismissed for a "gross breach of trust", the company said. Siptu told the court the information sent to the RPA had not been intended to damage Connex's reputation. Rather, it had been sent on receipt of a request from the RPA in an attempt to explain why there were considerable difficulties in the Luas system.
The supervisor had been dismissed "on the cusp of Christmas 2004", the union said, which had caused great distress to his family.
Siptu also argued that a man should not lose his livelihood based on the "eccentric musings" of his employer on the motive for communicating widely available information to the body charged with obtaining that information in the first place.
In a recommendation just published, the court allowed the union's appeal and increased the compensation awarded. The supervisor was not named.
