WRC orders Prison Service to take back officer who went absent without leave to fight in Ukraine

Brian Meagher, who worked as a prison officer in Mountjoy Prison and whose young daughter is Ukrainian, left for Ukraine at the end of May 2022 and expressed hope that he could have gone to fight and returned to Ireland by late August 'with no one knowing'.

The Irish Prison Service has been ordered to re-engage a prisoner officer who was fired after he went absent without leave from his job for several months in 2022 to fight with an international legion in Ukraine.

The Workplace Relations Commission ruled that the IPS had unfairly dismissed prison officer, Brian Meagher, who sustained a life-threatening injury while fighting in Ukraine.