The chief operating officer of "ireland.com", a subsidiary of Irish Times Ltd, has taken High Court proceedings challenging a decision to make her redundant.
Yesterday, Mr Justice Lavan gave Ms Mary Mangan permission to serve Irish Times Ltd with notice of her intention to apply next Monday for an injunction to restrain the company from taking any further steps to terminate her employment.
Mr Mark Connaughton, for Ms Mangan, said that "ireland.com" was a very important subsidiary of Irish Times Ltd. Ms Mangan was made chief operating officer in May 2001 after she had been "head-hunted" for the job. She would contend that she had been a significant contributor to the turning around of the fortunes of "ireland.com". However, on November 21st 2002, she was told "out of the blue" that she was going to be made redundant.
Certain discussions took place, which Ms Mangan claimed were confidential. However, on February 10th last, she was told that she was being dismissed on one month's notice. Ms Mangan disputed the validity to that decision and was challenging it on a number of grounds, the most important being that there was no ground for a redundancy situation.
On the contrary, Ms Mangan claimed there was an animus towards her on the part of the managing director of Irish Times Ltd, Ms Maeve Donovan, as evinced by matters which took place as far back as April 2002.
Mr Connaughton said Ms Mangan contended that she had presented certain matters about the financial performance of the company and projections for its future performance, but these were not put to the board, and she was worried and troubled that that may have influenced the board.
The purported termination of her employment was a breach of her contract, counsel said. She was anxious to have the matter heard in court at the earliest opportunity.
The solicitors on record for Irish Times Ltd had indicated that they had authority to accept service of Ms Mangan's proceedings while disputing her claims. Counsel said that the matter would not trouble the court next Monday because it was accepted that Irish Times Ltd was entitled to come in and seek an adjournment.
Ms Mangan, in an affidavit, said that she had been managing director of An Post's "Post Gem" and "Ireland-on-Line" which, she said, she had transformed from loss-making entities into commercially-attractive companies which were ultimately sold to Esat for £115 million. She was asked if she would like to consider joining Irish Times Ltd as chief operations officer of "ireland.com".
Her period of tenure had coincided with an extremely difficult time for Irish Times Ltd and she believed she had been the architect of a substantial improvement in the performance of "ireland.com" to the point where, for the year ended December 31st 2002, the losses were reduced by 44 per cent. She believed that it would move into profit in 2004.
She had presented restructuring and redundancy proposals for "ireland.com" to members of the executive management team of Irish Times Ltd in November 2001 and, as part of that restructuring, KMPG had evalauted options for "ireland.com" with a view to refinancing and possible joint venture.