‘Campaign to blacken’ credit union bosses

THE chairman of a credit union that fired its two managers for misconduct has been accused of orchestrating a campaign to blacken their names.

In the High Court yesterday, Con O’Leary, chairman of the board of directors of Gurranabraher Credit Union in Cork, was accused of being “the driver behind the allegations” which eventually led to the dismissal of manager Alec Good and deputy manager Patricia O’Neill last December 17.

Mr Good and Ms O’Neill are opposing a move by the credit union to have an injunction preventing the filling of their posts lifted.

Both are taking legal action against the credit union on the grounds the disciplinary procedures which led to the decision to fire them were illegal. Both the credit union and Mr O’Leary are to refute the allegations.

Representing Mr Good in court yesterday, senior counsel Dr John O’Mahony described his client, manger of Gurranabraher Credit Union for 28 years, as “a spectacularly successful manager who has done

sterling work for the credit union”. Dr O’Mahony said the board of the credit union had been creating “significant difficulties” for Mr Good and Ms O’Neill, undermining their positions as senior management “for reasons not fully known”.

In his affidavit, Mr Good said there had been a marked unwillingness by the board to consult management and various board members had shouted at him, intimidated him and behaved aggressively towards him on occasions.

He said Mr O’Leary, who was appointed chairman in 1998, had made contact with staff of the credit union seeking to procure complaints against the two managers.

“There was quite obviously a subterranean campaign to undermine our people,” Dr O’Mahony said.

Referring to a 127,000 loan granted in July 2001 for the purposes of buying shampoo, Dr O’Mahony said the allegation was this particular loan was executed by Mr Good and the credit union did not authorise it.

However, Dr O’Mahony said KPMG, who went into the credit union on behalf of the plaintiffs last week, found minutes which showed the board did authorise the loan.

He said a complaint about the loan to the fraud squad, spun in the press two weeks before Ms O’Sullivan (hon sec of the credit union) went to the gardaí, was “party of a dirty campaign to seek to stigmatise our people”.

Alec Good, Dr O’Mahony said, had no case to answer in relation to the loan.

He said Mr O’Leary had acted imprudently, procuring complaints against his client, accusing him of unprofessional treatment of staff and threatening him and four other staff members, including Ms O’Neill, with suspension if they did not co-operate with a psychologist appointed to investigate them.

The day after the five staff received the letter from Mr O’Leary, Ms O’Neill inadvertently picked up the wrong mobile phone belonging to a junior staff member, displaying a text message:

“The f***s R gone 2night. Hang tough until 5 bells.” This caused her great distress, Dr O’Mahony said, and the gardaí were called in.

Mr O’Leary subsequently admitted the threat of suspension was “on a frolic of his own” and had not been authorised by the board.

Dr O’Mahony said the nature of the complaints against his client were “a far cry from misconduct of any kind”, that they related to general routine managerial matters and that sanctioning Mr Good’s dismissal on their basis was “an outrageous penalty”.