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Padraic Hanley, founder of PBR Restaurants Ltd which operates Dublin venues including Ouzos in Dalkey and Fish Shack cafes, has won €75,000 for unfair dismissal following a five-year legal battle. Hanley alleged he was forced out in 2020 after making protected disclosures about cash-in-hand payments, opening a cafe during an orange storm warning, and engaging an unregistered gas installer. The case centres on events after the company was placed in examinership in 2019 and taken over by new investors.
Padraic Hanley had alleged that in 2020, he was forced out at PBR Restaurants Ltd, the operator of a group of Dublin restaurants, including Ouzos in Dalkey, for objecting to what he saw as “wrongdoing” at the company following the takeover in 2019.
Photograph: Nick BradshawA businessman ousted after objecting to the decisions of his new bosses after the Dublin restaurant group he established was rescued from examinership has won €75,000 for unfair dismissal after a five-year legal battle. Padraic Hanley had alleged that in 2020, he was forced out at PBR Restaurants Ltd, the operator of a group of Dublin restaurants, for objecting to what he saw as “wrongdoing” at the company following the takeover in 2019.
The restaurant group was run by the Hanley family until August 2019, when it was placed into examinership and two of its restaurants, Ouzos in Dalkey and Kelly & Coopers in Blackrock, were sold off to separate investors. Manna’s Bobby Healy: ‘We’ve worked through real challenges along the way’ PBR restaurants retained four cafe units trading under the Fish Shack brand following the takeover, and Mr Hanley and three of his sons were retained as staff.
Hanley said in evidence he wrote an email to company director Colin Pardy on 3rd March 2020 objecting to a proposal to paying a chef “cash in hand” – citing concerns about such an arrangement being “uncovered by Revenue”. The following week, on 9th March 2020, Hanley said he made a second protected disclosure when Pardy said he wanted to open the company’s Fish Shack cafe – located on the East Pier at Dún Laoghaire Harbour – in spite of an “orange storm warning”.
Ten days later, he added, he said he learned a workman had been brought in to deal with a gas leak at the same location who was not a registered gas installer. Hanley said he again objected to paying the workman without an invoice and to engaging a contractor without the proper certification. A fourth protected disclosure concerned the sending of late-night emails by management, the court was told.
He was laid off on the stated basis of the Covid-19 pandemic on 19th March that year, the court heard. Neither he nor his sons were called back when the other staff were, the court was told.in 2021 and again on appeal to the Labour Court.
However, the High Court ruled the Labour Court “fell into errors of law” and directed the appeal be reheard. A three-member division of the Labour Court, chaired by Louise O’Donnell, ruled that the four communications made by Mr Hanley amounted to protected disclosures. As Mr Hanley was therefore shielded by whistleblower law, the normal 12-month minimum service requirement for a case under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 was set aside, the court noted.
Since the dismissal was subject to a statutory complaint, it fell to the PBR Restaurants to prove that the dismissal was fair – but the company did not appear before the Labour Court, the decision recorded. The Labour Court’s finding was that “but for making the protected disclosures, the complainant’s employment would not have been terminated”.
The award was based on Hanley’s full loss of earnings due to unemployment for an 11-month period up to July 2021, when he started working as a consultant and had reduced losses. The award by the Labour Court is in addition to over €117,000 in redress granted to Hanley’s three sons by the Workplace Relations Commission in recent years after the company declared them redundant. Their dismissals were all ruled unfair by the WRC.
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Unfair Dismissal Protected Disclosure PBR Restaurants Dublin Examinership Whistleblowing Workplace Wrongdoing Fish Shack Ouzos
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