Why committed Limerick trade unionist Frank McDonnell turned whistleblower
After 60 years as a Siptu member, including long stints where he was the union’s foremost figure in Limerick, this is where it appears to have ended for Frank McDonnell. Picture: Brian Arthur
On 6 March last, Frank McDonnell got the train from Limerick to Dublin, the bus from Heuston to the city centre, and set up shop outside Liberty Hall.
He stood near the entrance to the HQ of the biggest trade union in the country, Siptu, brandishing his notice. “Official Picket on here,” it read.
Most who were entering the building ignored him, as if he was some class of a crank. Curiosity got the better of a few. Anytime the 76-year-old was approached he set out as briefly as possible what his complaint was. He received a few quiet words of encouragement here and there, as might be expected from members of a trade union. And then when his picket was done, he went home.
After 60 years as a Siptu member, including long stints where he was the union’s foremost figure in Limerick, this is where it appears to have ended for this committed trade unionist.
Mr McDonnell is an unlikely whistleblower. All his life he believed in the organization that he now is convinced engaged in wrongdoing that wasn’t addressed. His compulsion to raise the issue didn’t come about from anything that was done to him personally, or an issue that impacted directly on his life.
Instead, he just saw something that he believed was contrary to a union’s commitment to workers and justice. If it had been dealt with, to his mind, in an appropriate manner, he wouldn’t have any further argument. That it wasn’t suggests to him that the union says one thing and does another.
Mr McDonnell is from St Mary’s Parish in Limerick City. He went to work at the age of 16 in the clothing industry and quickly gravitated towards Siptu. It was the beginning of a life of active involvement in the union. He was a long standing shop steward and a branch president. When structures were changed in 2010, effectively amalgamating branches, he was the first president of the new Limerick District Council for Siptu.
“There was a bit of work involved but I enjoyed it,” he says. “I would be selected to go to conferences and I was chair of the benevolent fund. Not all the union areas had a benevolent fund but we did, where a levy was paid and then we would be in a position to help out with hardship cases, which of course were on a confidential basis.”
Ill health dogged him in middle age and he ended up taking early retirement at the age of 60. He continued to help out at Siptu on a voluntary basis.
“I did some work in the Limerick Resource Centre, it was a community employment scheme,” he said. New prairies opened up for him. He was asked to get involved in welfare rights and undertook various courses. “I did the first exam ever in my life,” he said. “I learned an awful lot about the delivery of social information and I ended up getting a merit in the exam.” Later, the resource centre closed. Frank turned his voluntary instincts to another community.
The issue that was to blight his autumn years occurred in 2017, when the centre’s manager Linda Ledger came to him. “Linda told me that Siptu was blocking a rollover payment from the department of social welfare,” Mr McDonnell said.
The rollover concerns funding from the government to continue with community employment schemes at the centre, a vital programme in the community and voluntary sector. Siptu was in dispute with the centre over an issue with one of their members. Now it appeared as if it was using its position as a weapon in this localised dispute.
Mr McDonnell was appalled. As far as he was concerned, trade unions had a responsibility to stand with those who were at or close to the margins and the community centre represented just that cohort. The centre was running out of money and was forced to put its 160 employees of one form or another on protective notice.
Mr McDonnell went to the union, spoke to a number of contacts and ultimately got the matter resolved and the funding freed up. In a statement to the Linda Ledger said Mr McDonnell did the centre an enormous service.
“Frank McDonnell saved us from having to close our doors,” she said.
Life moved on but it left a bad taste in the mouth of the man who had been a committed trade unionist. The following year, a contact in Siptu told him that a specific official had been responsible for holding up the funding letter. He made a complaint within the union, got a hearing from the national executive, but was told that the matter was to be dealt with locally. It wasn’t. As far as he was concerned, there was a basic principle at issue, one that was central to the trade union movement. He then made a protected disclosure.
By that stage, his lifelong faith was wavering. Meanwhile, he was no longer a welcome figure in the organization he had served all his life, as befitting the role he held as honorary president of Siptu in Limerick. He was banned from the union’s Roxboro Road offices. Along with supporters from the St Munchin’s Centre he picketed the offices.
A spokesperson for Siptu told the local media that the reason for the ban was for “GDPR”, on the basis that Frank was no longer a member, but a volunteer and retiree.
He got on with his life, continuing to volunteer at St Muchin’s, where he still puts in the hours to this day. Yet he pursued the matter with the same doggedness he had applied to representing fellow workers at an earlier stage. He went to Transparency International, which advised him that he had a case to take to the Workplace Relations Commission on the basis that he had been penalized as a result of his protected disclosure. Along the way, tragedy struck when his wife Kay died last May.
The WRC heard the case last year. Mr McDonnell was represented by his cousin Ger Kennedy, who had worked as a full-time Siptu official for 25 years.
“I retired in 2023 after 25years working in the Limerick Siptu office,” Mr Kennedy said.
“I didn’t want to get involved in Frank’s case before retirement in case I was accused of putting blood ahead of colleagues, but as far as I was concerned I joined the union in the first place to do what’s right and representing Frank was the right thing to do.
"He was badly treated. That whole thing was not investigated and it should have been.”
“It is with a heavy heart that Mr McDonnell is presenting this complaint today,” the submission states.
“He has given a lifetime of working on behalf of this union and given that long and loyal service had an expectation that the complaint he made in good faith would be appropriately dealt with by Siptu. Instead, he finds that his dedication to the principles espoused by his trade union mean nothing to Siptu. Instead of being protected by his union for doing what was right he finds himself vilified and the subject of intimidation. Mr McDonnell has been betrayed by the organization that he spent his whole life working to support.”
The union vehemently denied any instance of intimidation and denied that there had been any penalization. The Siptu solicitor put forward a preliminary objection that McDonnell’s complaint was out of time.
Last December, the WRC adjudicator Jim Dolan issued his ruling. “I conclude that the complaint is out of time and therefore I have no jurisdiction to hear the complaint.”
That appears to be the end of the road for Frank McDonnell but maybe he doesn’t recognize it yet. Following his picket on March 6, he wrote to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to complain about Siptu and his belief that the union’s staff and members “ignored the time-honoured tradition of refusing to pass a picket”.
To some, his refusal to give up might appear to be an instance of perseverance beyond reason. Equally, however, from his perspective, he acted on a principled basis that is at the heart of trade union activism and the fact that his opponent in this instance was a trade union does nothing to change his focus on a commitment to social justice.
A series of questions were submitted to Siptu on this case to which a one line response was received. “Siptu have no comment to make on this query.”
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