Fás blocked from sacking director

FÁS has been blocked by the High Court from taking any further steps to sack health and safety director Greg Craig and from making disparaging comments to the media about him.

Barrister Oisin Quinn SC told the court Mr Craig, of Greenlea Grove, Terenure, Dublin, had been made a scapegoat by Fás and was continually being offered up to the media.

Mr Quinn told Mr Justice Paul Gilligan his client had been told early last week that he was being dismissed following an internal investigation.

Mr Craig, a former director of corporate affairs at Fás, claims the state agency is seeking to avoid a commitment made previously to apologise to him and to pay him compensation for damage caused to him.

He told the judge in an affidavit that he had locked himself in his office on Monday, September 5, to study an internal report by Ignatious Lynam when Fás’s assistant director Conor Dunne pushed in the door and told him he was firing him with immediate effect.

Mr Dunne had said he had studied the Lynam report and that it had established serious breaches of procedure, that he was going to fire him and ordered him to leave the premises and hand in his keys.

Mr Craig told the court he had been so shocked he had taken a diabetic “hypo attack”.

Mr Dunne had insisted he leave immediately and only take his personal belongings. He had threatened that if necessary he would get the gardaí to remove him from the premises.

Mr Quinn told the court Mr Craig had later been handed a letter by Mr Dunne’s secretary telling him his email account and phone had been cut off and he was to leave the building or head office security staff would be called.

He said Mr Craig believed he would have an opportunity to challenge the findings of the Lynam report.

Mr Quinn said that as part of the winding down process of Fás Mr Craig was to be transferred to the Department of Social Protection in 2012 but he would be unable to take up that employment if he was not an employee of Fás.

Judge Gilligan granted Mr Craig an injunction restraining Fás from taking any steps to further implement the purported dismissal and a further injunction restraining Fás from making, communicating or publishing any adverse or disparaging statements concerning him.

Mr Craig had claimed that on a number of occasions certain matters regarding him had been leaked by Fás to the media.