Dublin Bus driver sacked after twice using phone while driving loses unfair dismissal claim

A Dublin Bus driver sacked after twice being caught by inspectors using his mobile phone while driving has lost his unfair dismissal claim.

Okan Karpuz said in both cases he was checking up on his family when it happened on dates in October and November 2019 and had a sick son at home on the second occasion, claiming there had been defects in the process leading to his dismissal that December.

Mr Karpuz’s complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against Bus Átha Cliath, trading as Dublin Bus, was denied by the employer and dismissed by the Workplace Relations Commission in a decision published today.

The company’s head of HR, Alan Grant, told the WRC last November that Dublin Bus has a “zero-tolerance” policy on the use of mobile phones while driving and that breaches of it were considered gross misconduct.

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Bus inspectors David Kelly and Leo Murphy gave evidence that they each saw Mr Karpuz “using his mobile phone while driving” and made reports about it.

Mr Karpuz said that on the first occasion, on October 30th 2019, he texted his daughter from the terminus of his route in Ashtown, Dublin “to see if everything was okay” as she was at home minding his son.

He said that when he was out on his route, the phone beeped and he “took the phone out and looked at it” and was seen doing so by an inspector.

The inspector said he would be writing a report about it and Mr Karpuz was invited the next day to a disciplinary hearing the following month.

Dublin Bus’s position was that Mr Karpuz failed to show up for that hearing. Mr Karpuz said the invitation only gave a date, November 7th, but had “no specific time” and that he “worked on as usual”.

The second occasion, on November 21st 2019, he said his son was ill and he missed a call from his wife, who then left him a voice message.

Mr Karpuz said he used the phone to listen to the message while he was stopped at traffic lights and put it away as soon as they went green, but was again seen by an inspector and told later that morning he would have to go to a meeting about it.

The hearing went ahead on the day over the objections of a trade union rep who said the matter should not proceed to the disciplinary stage without a “proper investigation”, the tribunal was told.

The disciplinary officer, Tim Fitzgibbon, said the meeting of the 7th was “rescheduled” to the 21st after Mr Karpuz failed to appear but that after Mr Karpuz was “caught for a second time using the phone” ahead of the new date, the firm decided to deal with both matters together.

Mr Karpuz was allowed to keep driving until after his appeal was rejected on December 18th 2019, Mr Dorda said – with the complainant telling the tribunal he later secured a job driving a bus for a hotel but had moved on since.

Mr Karpuz’s trade union advocate, Barnaba Dorda of the Siptu Workers’ Rights Centre, said Dublin Bus was “inconsistent” in its approach to the two cases.

“The first one was essentially ignored, but the second one was dealt with promptly,” Mr Dorda submitted. “Other drivers in similar situations were not dismissed,” he added.

It was the complainant’s position that there was no policy at Dublin Bus against “holding” a mobile phone while driving.

Dublin Bus, which was represented at hearing by Córas Iompar Éireann (CIÉ) in-house solicitor Hugh Hannon, denied the unfair dismissal claim and the lack of consistency claimed by the union.

The company said 16 drivers had been given a sanction of dismissal for a first offence of breaching its mobile phone policy, but that ten drivers “were successful at the appeal stage”.

“Each case is dealt with on its own facts,” Mr Hannon said in submission.

In her decision, adjudicating officer Niamh O’Carroll wrote that Mr Karpuz did not contest being caught on his phone while driving a bus and that she could find “no breach of procedure that could render the dismissal unfair”.

She rejected Mr Karpuz’s complaint.