With perhaps no little understatement, High Court judge Rory Mulcahy described recent times at Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), where Philip Nolan served as director general, as being “marked by turbulence”.
Internal disagreements essentially tore apart the State agency which is responsible for funding research in science, technology, engineering and maths.
The SFI dispute also cast a shadow into the world of politics.
The parent department of SFI is the Department of Further and Higher Education, which is not usually seen as the most prominent or controversial part of government.
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However, on January 8th, when SFI chairman Prof Peter Clinch informed the department that five senior staff members had made protected disclosures containing allegations regarding Nolan, the Minister who received the correspondence was Simon Harris.
Within a few weeks Harris would occupy the Taoiseach’s office and everything associated with him would be magnified.
Harris had also earmarked Nolan as “CEO designate” of a new body, Research Ireland – which will involve the merger of SFI and the Irish Research Council (IRC) – with a €300 million annual budget.
Public rows happen in State bodies from time to time. Twenty-eight years ago next week the senior management team in the Department of Health took sides in a High Court case over a promotion.
Few outside the health service knew those involved in that dispute.
However, Nolan had come to great public prominence for his role on the National Public Health Emergency Team during the Covid crisis.
In such circumstances, the infighting at SFI when it leaked to the media was always going to become a significant public controversy.
On May 27th the SFI board sacked Nolan.
Clinch told him it could not ignore the breakdown in his relationship with his senior executive staff.
“In the board’s view, the management of the Foundation is not functioning effectively, and the Board cannot allow that situation to continue such that the Foundation is at serious risk of being unable to perform its statutory responsibilities.”
An independent investigator brought in by the SFI board found Nolan had not breached corporate governance or engaged in bullying but had displayed “inappropriate behaviour” towards senior managers, which was at the “upper level” in respect of two individuals.
A protected disclosures group, made up of three board members, agreed, as did the full board.
But Clinch told Nolan in his dismissal letter that it “is neither in the Foundation’s interest or yours to initiate a disciplinary process on foot of the protected disclosure group’s report”.
Instead it fired him under a clause in his contract which allowed SFI to terminate his employment by giving three months’ notice in writing.
Nolan subsequently went to the High Court and secured an interim order halting his dismissal. But the court on Friday refused to extend this until the full trial of Nolan’s case.
The judge said when the full case was heard Nolan may “be able to show that this was, in substance, a dismissal for misconduct”.
“But on the state of the evidence to date, he has not succeeded in establishing a strong case.”
But where does this now leave Nolan?
Certainly the court ruling represented a blow to his prospects of returning to SFI.
“There must be a very serious question over whether this is an employer/employee relationship which could ever be repaired, even if the plaintiff ultimately succeeded in these proceedings,” the judge said.
But SFI will not be around as a stand-alone body for much longer.
The judge said Nolan’s concern “seems at least as much with the potential impact on his position as designated CEO of the new organisation, Research Ireland, as with his entitlement to continue as director general of SFI”.
The judge pointed out that SFI had confirmed in the proceedings that Nolan had not been dismissed for misconduct.
He suggested Nolan would not necessarily lose out on becoming head of the new Research Ireland organisation which was a matter for the new Minister for Higher Education, Patrick O’Donovan.
O’Donovan’s department has not announced a date for the official commencement of the agency. On Friday it said it would not be appropriate to comment on potential future arrangements at this stage.
Sources close to Nolan said he was considering all his legal options.
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