A disability charity has been ordered to pay over 320,000 in a record whistleblower penalisation award to a senior manager following an attempt to replace her and allegations of bullying against its ex-chairman.
The Waterford Intellectual Disability Association (WIDA) has been ordered by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) to pay the compensation to Fiona O’Neill, the charity’s “de facto chief executive officer”, on foot of her complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014.
It’s more than triple the previous record sum awarded by the WRC in a dispute brought under the whistleblower shield law.
The unidentified former chairman was alleged to have declared he would install an interim chief executive (CEO) who “hates whistleblowers”, who would run the organisation “the way the board wanted it to run” – and that the chairman would “see [Ms O’Neill] out of WIDA before he would go anywhere”.
The chairman has since been replaced, the WRC recorded in a set of decisions on the dispute published on Wednesday.
Shaun Boylan, for the complainant, submitted that a chairman of the board, identified only as “EC” in the decisions, had “increasingly sought to interfere” with the management of the service.
This included the chairman directing O’Neill to “assist him” at the Farrelly Commission – the State investigation into the Grace case concerning alleged foster home abuse of a woman with intellectual disabilities, Boylan said.
O’Neill considered this inappropriate, as...
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