Prosecutors drop most serious charges against Deirdre Foley in Clerys redundancies trial

By Tom Tuite

Prosecutors have dropped the most serious charge brought against businesswoman Deirdre Foley over redundancies at Clerys.

A connected charge brought against Natrium Ltd, which bought out the iconic department store on Dublin’s O’Connell Street in 2015, was also withdrawn today.

Previous owners OCS Operations petitioned the High Court for liquidation on June 12, 2015. This was followed by the collective redundancies in which 460 people lost jobs; 130 of them were directly employed by Clerys, the court has heard.

Ms Foley was due to go on trial in January on a single charge of impeding a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) inspector and three counts of breaking protection of employment laws. However, following legal argument about non-disclosure of earlier drafts of witness statements today the charge against Ms Foley for impeding the WRC on June 12, 2015 was dropped by the prosecution.

Dublin District Court heard this obstruction offence was the only charge against her which carried a potential jail sentence.

Natrium was also charged with obstructing or impeding a WRC inspector on June 27 last year at 25-28 North Wall Quay, the company’s address. Deirdre Foley who has a 20% stake in that firm which was also due to go on trial in January as a co-defendant of Ms Foley and others.

During pre-trial legal argument today, Natrium’s solicitor James McGuill applied for an order to allow a computer expert for the defence examine computer files of the prosecution witness statements.

He said he had applied in accordance with Director of Public Prosecutions guidelines for copies of earlier drafts of statements made by the WRC inspector.

He said that he had been told that the computer documents had been revised 168 times, but it was not possible to access the earlier drafts. The prosecution had engaged in a process of deleting each draft and that, Mr McGuill argued, “amounted to a destruction of evidence”

A description of the documents’ properties could also say when they had been printed, but the hard-copies were not available.

He said that he was entitled to these versions which also included any possible emailed versions of the documents or drafts which may still be on computer servers.

He also submitted that the earlier drafts of the statements were essential for cross-examination.

He said disclosure already furnished shows that there had been 78 hours of editing of the statements and the material had been subject to multiple inputs over a protracted period of time.

The application was supported by Ronan Kennedy BL, for Ms Foley who has an address at Hollybank Avenue, Upper Ranelagh, Dublin 6.

Judge Brennan indicated that he would grant the order to allow Natrium’s computer expert to examine the computer files in question.

Breffni Gordon BL for the prosecution said that would not be a problem. However, following recess, Mr Gordon told the court that obstruction charges against Natrium and Ms Foley were being withdrawn.

No further charges remain against Natrium however, Ms Foley still faces trial on less serious charges under the Protection of Employment Act for failing to initiate consultations with representatives of employees, failing to supply them with all relevant information relating to the redundancies and not notifying the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in writing, on June 12, 2015 which can result, on conviction, in a fine. She is contesting the charges.

Mark Redmond, of Belfry Dale, Citywest Road, Saggart, Co. Dublin is an employee of D2 Private Ltd, a firm owned by Deirdre Foley. He faces the same charges for allegedly failing to notify the Minister or consult with workers’ representative or provide them with relevant information about the redundancies.

Brendan Cooney, a director of OCS Operations Ltd, with an address at Weirview Drive, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin has the same charges plus an additional one under the Workplace Relations Act for giving false or misleading information to an inspector.

Mr Cooney and Mr Redmond also have a further charge alleging they failed to keep records as required to ensure compliance with Section 18.1 of the Protection of Employment Act.

Mr Cooney’s case has been adjourned for mention until December 20 next.

OCS Operations Ltd has four charges. It operated Clerys Department Store and Warehouse, from 2012 until a liquidator was appointed in June 2015, when it ceased trading.

Its alleged offences are under the Protection of Employment Act for failing to initiate consultations with representatives of employees affected by the collective redundancies in OCS Operations Ltd, failing to supply employee representatives with all relevant information relating to the redundancies and not notifying the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in writing, on June 12, 2015 – the day of the Clerys takeover.

It is also accused of failing to keep records as required to ensure compliance with Section 18.1 of the Protection of Employment Act.

The case against OCS, Mr Redmond and Ms Foley was adjourned until February 6 next.

All the defendants have indicated that they would be contesting the charges.