Restaurant owner fined over permit offence

The owner of a Tandoori restaurant was convicted of employing a Pakistani without a work permit despite his claims the worker had simply gone behind the counter to help out for a short period.

Mohammad Imran, aged 31, was operating the Indian Tandoori on North Main St, Cork, on Mar 9, 2011, when immigration officers called.

They found Ali Majeed, a young Pakistani national with an address at the Balseskin reception centre, Finglas, Dublin, working behind the counter.

While Imran denied Mr Majeed was employed there, the young man behind the counter was seen cooking and serving food and putting cash into the till.

He had a sweatshirt and baseball hat with the restaurant logo.

On his mobile phone were several pictures of himself behind the counter of the same premises.

When Judge Eugene O’Kelly convicted Imran of employing Mr Majeed without a work permit as required, he referred to the pictures of the young man photographed behind the counter — on his own phone — on six occasions in the four months previous to Mar 9, 2011.

The judge fined the employer €500 for the offence under the Employment Permit Act of 2003.

Imran had told his solicitor Graham Hyde he had to go out for a while that evening and asked “the big guy” to go behind the counter for a while.

He said he only knew him by his first name, and that he had helped him behind the counter once or twice before.

Imran said he never paid him and that he was not an employee.

Detective Garda Damien Moloney of the immigration unit in Cork said Mr Majeed was previously dealt with in court in respect of the incident.

Mr Hyde said Imran’s restaurant had been destroyed by fire since the incident and the defendant, who lives in a flat at 34 Mary St, Cork, was now working as a chef for someone else.