An Irish Rail worker fired after defying orders not to operate a crane by taking over when he saw it was overloaded – only for it to collapse and trap another worker’s foot – showed “great leadership and bravery” by freeing the man with a crowbar, his trade union has said.
The worker, Portlaoise-based engineering operative Liam Óg Lynch, was sacked by the national rail operator in the wake of the incident on 8 March 2023 – the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) being told today that its management saw his actions on the day as “reckless”.
Mr Lynch is looking for his job back in a statutory complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, with his trade union arguing at a preliminary hearing that the move to sack him went too far.
The tribunal was told Mr Lynch had been an Irish Rail employee since late October 2021, when he started work in a plant producing pre-stressed concrete sleepers for use in works on the Cork main line.
Irish Rail employment relations manager Laura Devoy told the tribunal that an employee of a contractor had been injured by a gantry crane which Mr Lynch had “knowingly operated without permission”.
A manager had previously identified “safety critical issues” with Mr Lynch’s work at a meeting in November 2022, she said. The worker was instructed in February not to operate the gantry crane at the centre of the incident until further notice, Ms Devoy told the tribunal.
Mr Lynch’s trade union representative, Andrea Cleere of the Siptu Workers’ Rights Centre, told the tribunal that the work crew was short-handed on 8 March 2023 as her client had been asked to stand in for an absent senior chargehand.
Ms Cleere said her client “sought the assistance of an experienced operator but was refused”, with a contract worker instead taking charge of the crane.
“Mr Lynch raised concerns regarding the machine operating experience of the contractor, but these fell on deaf ears,” Ms Cleere said.
She submitted that with the contract machine operator running the gantry crane it “became apparent that the load had not been properly secured”.
“Given that the only qualified operator who could work the machine was operating an unsafe load, Liam Óg Lynch, in his role as chargehand, took over the operation of the machine,” the trade union rep said.
Mr Lynch decided it was “not viable to secure the load due to the surroundings” and decided to “land the gantry load as best he could in the circumstances”.
“Landing the machine was the securest option, given the proximity of the load to the ground,” Ms Cleere submitted.
“Unfortunately, an injury occurred whereby the foot of another contractor machine operator became trapped under one of the beams from the load due to the machine collapsing due to a fault occurring while the load was being grounded,” Ms Cleere continued.
Because of the fault, her client could not raise the gantry again, she said.
“In an act of leadership and great bravery, he got a crowbar and lifted the beam with all his strength to rescue the foot of the contractor machine operator,” Ms Cleere submitted.
She added that when the Portlaoise depot supervisor got to the scene he “reprimanded Mr Lynch as his first course of action without tending to the injured party on the ground”.
A company investigation and disciplinary process concluded that Mr Lynch “engaged in an act of reckless violation by operating a gantry crane despite having been instructed not to do so by his line manager”, the tribunal heard.
A view was expressed by Mr Lynch during the investigation that the equipment was “faulty”, the tribunal heard. However, Ms Devoy said: “This wasn’t proven, and doesn’t excuse the use of the equipment in the first place.” Ms Cleere countered that there was “no evidence of this being investigated”.
The outcome of the disciplinary process was a final written warning for Mr Lynch. However, a senior manager decided to invoke a provision of the Irish Rail disciplinary processes allowing for the termination of an employee on a “temporary contract” on foot of a written sanction, the tribunal was told.
Ms Devoy said this was provided for in the terms of a collective agreement. Ms Cleere said the union was disputing that its member was a temporary employee at the relevant time.
The tribunal heard the collective agreement in question dated to the 1990s, and consequently predated the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003.
On this point, adjudicator Brian Dolan said: “It just seems to me that to treat an employee differently because he’s on a temporary contract is a breach.”
Ms Devoy replied that there had been no complaint brought under the 2003 legislation – but Mr Dolan said his duty under the Unfair Dismissals Act was to consider Irish Rail’s adherence to “policies and procedures” and added: “If those policies and procedures are themselves illegal, you can’t be said to have acted reasonably.”
The matter has now been adjourned pending an in-person hearing in the autumn, when up to five witnesses may be called including Mr Lynch. The date is to be confirmed in due course by the WRC.
