A NATIONAL Car Testing Service inspector who was fired for putting “undue influence” on other testers to pass a vehicle that had failed, became “very abusive” towards colleagues until they agreed with him, an Employment Appeals Tribunal heard yesterday.
Rory Cunningham, who worked for Vicuna Ltd (formerly National Car Testing Service Ltd) in the Cahir testing centre in Co Tipperary from 1999 until 2009, admitted to becoming “involved” in a test he should not have, but claimed his employer’s decision to dismiss him was both disproportionate and based on an investigation where fair procedures “were not followed in any sense of the word”, according to his legal team.
Giving evidence to the tribunal, James Folan, a vehicle inspector working at the Cahir test centre at the time of the incident, said he had been “shocked” by Mr Cunningham’s behaviour.
Mr Folan recalled for the tribunal how he had arrived early for his night shift on May 7th, 2009, when Mr Cunningham asked him to recheck a car that another inspector had earlier failed.
Mr Folan said he agreed to carry out the recheck as a favour to Mr Cunningham. After completing his recheck, Mr Folan reached the same conclusion as the previous inspector: the car should fail because of wear in some of the steering components.
A discussion followed, which Mr Folan described as “quite heated” and then “loud verbally”.
He said people in the waiting room could hear the vulgar language being used in the argument.
Mr Cunningham was of the opinion that the problem identified during the visual inspection of the vehicle was not sufficient to warrant a fail.
In his efforts to persuade Mr Folan and the original inspector, Mr Cunningham is alleged to have threatened to make their lives difficult by alerting the local media as well as National Car Testing headquarters in Dublin about the issue.
“It was not the way I knew Rory to be – I was shocked,” said Mr Folan.
As Mr Cunningham had been in the company a lot longer than Mr Folan, who joined in 2008, Mr Folan decided that he “didn’t need this attention”.
“I passed the car initially. I was with the company a short time and I was unsure about how to handle the situation,” he explained.
However, after a bout of guilt, he reported the incident the following morning to the team leader on duty at the centre.
“I felt bad about what I’d done,” he said.
The investigation that followed led to Mr Cunningham’s dismissal.
The case was adjourned until November 28th.