Restaurateur Awarded €75k After Landmark Whistleblower Victory

A prominent Dublin hospitality figure who established a well-known chain of coastal seafood eateries has been awarded more than €75,000 after winning a protracted five-year legal battle against his former company. The Labour Court determined that Padraig Hanley, the former operator behind the Fish Shack brand, was unlawfully penalised and unfairly dismissed after raising serious workplace improprieties, including tax evasion proposals and severe health and safety risks.

The determination overturns previous setbacks before statutory workplace bodies, following an intervention by the High Court which had directed that the dispute be reheard. Delivering its ruling, a three-member division of the Labour Court concluded that Mr Hanley had suffered penalisation under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 as a direct consequence of making multiple protected disclosures under Irish whistleblowing legislation.

Takeover and Protected Disclosures

The dispute traces back to August 2019, when the restaurant group originally established by the Hanley family entered examinership. As part of an investment rescue scheme under the Companies Act, two units were divested, while an operating company, PBR Restaurants Ltd, retained four casual dining locations trading under the Fish Shack banner. Mr Hanley and three of his sons were retained as company employees to assist with operational continuity under the new management.

However, serious friction quickly developed between Mr Hanley and incoming management regarding statutory compliance and operational standards. Evidence presented on Mr Hanley’s behalf detailed four distinct protected disclosures made in early 2020. On 3 March 2020, Mr Hanley submitted a written objection to company director Colin Pardy concerning a proposal to pay an incoming chef cash in hand, cautioning that off-the-books remuneration breached statutory tax rules and would inevitably be uncovered by the Revenue Commissioners.

Less than a week later, on 9 March 2020, Mr Hanley raised urgent safety concerns when company leadership sought to keep the Fish Shack outlet on the East Pier in Dún Laoghaire Harbour open during a severe status-orange storm warning. Ten days thereafter, he intervened when management engaged an uncertified contractor without an invoice to address an active gas leak at the same harbour premises. Mr Hanley objected vigorously both to the lack of safe, certified workmanship from a registered gas installer and to the off-the-record financial transaction. A fourth disclosure addressed the continuous transmission of late-night electronic communications to staff.

Redundancy Cover and the Long Road Through the Courts

On 19 March 2020, as the initial restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic swept the hospitality sector, Mr Hanley was placed on temporary lay-off. Although other members of the workforce were progressively recalled as business resumed under revised guidelines, Mr Hanley and his sons were permanently excluded from the business. Legal proceedings were subsequently initiated through the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), where Mr Hanley was represented by Michael Kinsley BL, instructed by Daniel O'Connell of Keans Solicitors.

The initial complaint encountered significant procedural hurdles. Both an adjudication officer at the WRC in 2021 and the Labour Court on initial appeal dismissed Mr Hanley's claims. However, his legal team successfully pursued the matter to the High Court, which held that the Labour Court had fallen into errors of law regarding its treatment of whistleblowing protections and directed that the appeal be re-heard in full before a freshly constituted division.

Labour Court Ruling and Broader Family Redress

Re-evaluating the dispute, the Labour Court division, chaired by Louise O'Donnell, accepted that all four communications satisfied the statutory definition of protected disclosures. This critical finding permitted Mr Hanley to bypass the standard 52-week continuous service requirement usually mandated under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, as Irish employment law affords day-one protection to workers subjected to dismissal for whistleblowing.

Given that a prima facie link between the protected disclosures and the termination was established, the legal burden shifted to PBR Restaurants Ltd to prove that the dismissal was wholly justified and untainted by penalisation. The employer elected not to attend the Labour Court hearing or present rebutting evidence. Consequently, the court established that but for the protected disclosures, Mr Hanley’s employment would not have been terminated.

The Labour Court awarded Mr Hanley €75,549 in financial redress, reflecting his total loss of earnings over an 11-month period of unemployment prior to securing alternative consultancy engagements. The ruling brings the total statutory compensation awarded to the Hanley family past €192,000, following earlier WRC rulings that granted more than €117,000 in collective damages to Mr Hanley's three sons after their purported redundancies were likewise determined to be unfair dismissals.