A banker who spent decades moonlighting as a barman at a Dublin pub ended up being sacked twice in one year after a senior manager at AIB read about his unfair dismissal from his after-hours pub job in a news report, a tribunal has heard.
The bank served notice of termination on the worker, Alan Ecock, a week after he won €25,000 in December 2023 for what the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) found to be a “heartless” and “completely unlawful” unfair dismissal from Kavanagh’s Pub in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7.
He has now brought further complaints under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 and the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 against Allied Irish Banks.
Lawyers for the bank told the WRC yesterday that Mr Ecock had in the past categorically denied having a job in the bar run by the Peacock pub family when questioned by his managers.
They argued that when he was confronted with the news report on his previous WRC case he “denied, deflected and ultimately lied to his employer” until he recanted in the face of “incontrovertible evidence”.
“It became apparent that the information provided was at odds with what was in the newspaper articles,” said Roland Rowan BL, appearing for AIB instructed by bank solicitor Mark Kelly.
Mr Ecock’s solicitor, Setanta Landers, said: “It was not a secret. He’s pulling pints in a city centre pub for 30 years. It was not an express breach of his contract of employment.”
The tribunal was told in the previous proceedings that Mr Ecock first worked for the Peacock family in the 1980s as a lounge boy and continued to work evening shifts at Kavanagh’s despite starting a career in banking in 1994 – only cutting back to two nights a week after he got married in 2013.
Mr Landers, who represented Mr Ecock in both cases, said his client was “ambushed” with an allegation and was “less than forthright” at first, but later “came clean” and told “the full, unadulterated truth”.
Mr Landers said the management was “fixed” in its course in and took the attitude: “How can we beef this up?”
The tribunal heard Mr Ecock received notice of dismissal on 13 December last year following a disciplinary process, with his employment coming to an end last February after he served out a notice period.
Giving evidence, Owen Murtagh, the head of Mr Ecock’s department, told the tribunal that quotes attributed to Mr Ecock in the news reports of his first WRC case published last October “contradicted” his previous statements to a disciplinary investigation in May that year denying that he worked behind the bar at Kavanagh’s.
“He’d previously told us he was collecting rent on Fridays and Saturdays for the Peacock Group and receiving €50 or €60 a week for diesel,” Mr Murtagh said.
That process concluded with Mr Ecock receiving a final written warning after the bank determined that what he had stated previously about working as a rent collector for the Peacock Group amounted to a breach of policy, the tribunal heard.
Mr Murtagh said that when he questioned Mr Ecock first about the October news article, the complainant insisted it was “incorrect”, again denied working as a bar manager, and remarked that he felt there was a “witch hunt” against him.
The witness said Mr Ecock told a formal meeting on 25 October that the first WRC case was “all his solicitor’s doing” and that the complaint was brought “unbeknownst to him”.
The complainant again denied having any paid work at the bar and said he was only involved with the Peacocks as a “rent collector and running bingo nights for the elderly”, Mr Murtagh said.
“Only at the very end did Alan decide to tell the truth,” Mr Murtagh said.
Quoting from the meeting minutes, Mr Rowan put it to the witness that Mr Ecock became upset and said that he “wanted to be able to provide for his family”.
The minutes then recorded Mr Ecock confirming he had two jobs and going on to say he “shouldn’t have taken out all the debt”, Mr Rowan added.
Mr Ecock then went on to refer to his debt rating as “grade 2B”, the hearing was told – a grading Mr Murtagh said could only be found out by accessing internal bank systems. That was only allowed “when there’s a business need”, he said.
Mr Murtagh subsequently put Mr Ecock on notice of a formal disciplinary process – and also asked a member of the bank’s special investigations unit to check whether Mr Ecock had “used the bank system for his own personal reasons”, he said.
The log produced showed 11 occasions on which Mr Ecock had accessed his own risk profile, information Mr Murtagh said was meant to be “internal to the bank”.
The bank’s later decision to dismiss Mr Ecock was based on internal investigation findings that he gave “false and misleading” information about his involvement with the pub business and for accessing the bank systems, it was submitted.
Cross-examining Mr Murtagh, Mr Landers put it to him: “Ultimately [Mr Ecock] did tell the truth.”
“After five months of being dishonest, ater five months of not telling the truth, and 50 minutes into a one-hour meeting,” Mr Murtagh said.
“You have strong feelings on it,” Mr Landers said.
“It’s an important piece of context,” the witness said.
Counsel put it to the witness that he was “sort of aggrieved” at Mr Ecock and had directed the inquiries “to add weight to the allegations” against his client.
“That’s not the case,” Mr Murtagh said.
“That’s what it looks like,” Mr Landers said.
Mr Murtagh repeated his denial and went on to say: “I can’t ignore the fact that somebody on my team has conflicts of interest and has been deceitful.”
Adjudicator John Harraghy adjourned the matter to a future date, with Mr Ecock and another bank witness yet to testify.
