'Utterly absurd' to suggest AIB employee should be reinstated

A FORMER AIB employee dismissed after accessing the bank accounts of other staff should not be reinstated “under any circumstances”, an Employment Appeals Tribunal was told yesterday.

In the final day of an unfair dismissals case taken by Brian Purcell (38) against AIB, counsel for the bank, Patrick Hanratty, said it would be “utterly absurd” to suggest he be reinstated even if it was found he was unfairly dismissed.

Mr Purcell was dismissed in April 2009, a year after the bank had discovered he had accessed nine accounts of staff. He said he checked them to see whether they had received a bonus he did not get. He was the subject of a disciplinary procedure at the bank, followed by an internal appeal and an external appeal. All three found he should be dismissed.

The case was complicated by Mr Purcell’s involvement in a “speak-out” whistle-blower procedure at the bank. In the months before he was dismissed, he had uncovered some unusual accounting transactions and had reported them. Though his anonymity was supposed to have been protected, some senior staff were told he was the whistle-blower.

There was also a history of an allegation of bullying made by Mr Purcell against the bank which is still before the High Court.

Counsel for Mr Purcell, Michael Forde, said the bank was looking for a pretext to get rid of Mr Purcell. He had been targeted, and they wanted to “take him out”.

Mr Forde told the tribunal, chaired by Penelope McGrath, that the bank’s disciplinary procedures were unfair because Mr Purcell was not allowed to raise certain issues. Even if the procedures were found to be fair, “the most outrageous grounds can’t be whitewashed by an impeccable procedure”, Mr Forde said.

He asked the tribunal to reinstate Mr Purcell because he did not have “a snowball’s chance” of being employed in financial services elsewhere now it was known he was a whistle-blower.

Mr Hanratty said it was “incongruous” to suggest Mr Purcell could return to work with people whose privacy he had invaded.

He dismissed the notion of a “hidden agenda” in the bank’s decision to sack Mr Purcell, or that it had anything to do with the whistle-blower issue. The “elephant in the room” was that the dismissal had occurred after “a very elaborate due process in the form of the bank’s disciplinary procedures”, Mr Hanratty said.

He suggested the only question the tribunal needed to answer was whether a “reasonable employer” would dismiss an employee for accessing the bank accounts of customers who were also employees. If the answer was yes, then Mr Purcell had been fairly dismissed.

A decision on the case is likely to be given in the new year.