Senior employee of centre dedicated to late priest secures order preventing role replacement

A senior employee of a centre in Co Mayo dedicated to a late Catholic priest has secured a temporary High Court order preventing his employer from appointing somebody else to take over what he claims are his roles and duties.

The order was secured by Padraic Walsh, who claims his employer, which operates a facility named after the Irish-born evangelist Fr Patrick Peyton, known as “The Rosary Priest”, has damaged his reputation and breached his contract of employment by appointing another person to do many of the duties he fulfils.

Mr Walsh claims he is the national director of the centre, which is located at Attymass near Ballina. The facility serves as a spiritual and visitor centre in honour of Fr Peyton, who was born in the area.

At the High Court on Tuesday Mr Justice David Nolan, on an ex parte basis, granted Mr Walsh an interim injunction restraining the Father Patrick Peyton CFC Memorial Company Ltd from taking any steps to appoint any person to the role of executive director of the defendant organisation. The judge was satisfied that Mr Walsh had raised a fair issue to be tried, namely that the proposed appointment would amount to a breach of contract by the defendant, and that damages would not be an adequate remedy.

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Given the injunction would not prejudice the running of the centre, the judge added that the balance of justice favoured the granting of a temporary order. The matter will return to court next week.

The court heard that Mr Walsh has worked as the defendant’s national director and as the centre’s manager since 2016, with his position renewed in 2021.

Mr Walsh claims he was last year the subject of “baseless” allegations of bullying made by another employee. He was “fully exonerated” of all of those allegations. Despite his vindication, he claims, his relationship with his employer has not been the same as it was before. He claims the chair of the board had avoided him and he has not been invited to any board meetings, which he had been prior to the bullying allegations.

In September, Mr Walsh claims, he was informed his employer intended to appoint an executive director, who he would have to report to directly instead of his employer’s board. He claims many of the duties he had performed have been assigned to the executive director, who, the court heard, is a Catholic priest working for the centre. The proposed executive director was due to take up the position this Wednesday.

Mr Walsh, it is claimed, was shocked by the news that somebody else would be essentially doing the role he would be doing and immediately instructed solicitors to correspond with his employer asking them not to proceed with the appointment.

However, no undertakings were given by the employer to him, resulting in Mr Walsh’s lawyers making the application to the High Court. He fears the proposed appointment will damage his reputation within his community and it has left him marginalised, ostracised and isolated.

Fr Peyton, who died in 1992 aged 83, was the founder of the Family Rosary Crusade and was known for phrases including “the family that prays together stays together” and “a world at prayer is a world at peace”.

After the second World War, Fr Peyton, an ardent anti-communist, staged massive rosary rallies in cities all over the world and used TV and radio shows to promote his idea of family values and prayer through the rosary. He is a candidate for canonisation.