Sacked supervisor in tree dumping case awarded €20k

A supervisor at a forestry services company, who was fired after thousands of young trees were discovered to have been dumped, has been awarded €19,024 in compensation under the Unfair Dismissals Act.

Vladomir Okuril took his case against his employer, Stephen Colhoun Ltd of Gortnavilly, Lifford, Co Donegal to the Employment Appeals Tribunal after he was fired along with two others for alleged fraud, theft and dumping of the trees. The tribunal, sitting in Letterkenny, heard Stephen Colhoun Ltd had a contract to replant trees for the National Forestry Board, at various sites.

In May 2011, 30 bags of new trees — 3,000 in all — and worth €6,500, were discovered dumped two to three miles from a planting site where Mr Okuril and the other two members of his team, one of whom who was his uncle, had been working.