The operator of the Homesavers discount chain has been ordered to pay €30,000 in compensation to a manager who said he was pressured to “obstruct” gardaí and health inspectors probing a major mouse infestation at a store.
There were so many mice living in the Homesavers store at the City East retail park in Limerick City 2022 that they would set off the alarm at night, the Workplace Relations Commission was told – while it took three hours every morning for three managers to clean up their droppings and urine, its former manager, Darell Donnelly said in evidence.
In a decision released this week, the employment tribunal has upheld his complaint under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 against the operator of the store, Acchl Limited, trading as Homesavers.
The company had called the complaint “entirely unfounded and based on material misrepresentations”.
Mr Donnelly headed up a team of between 50 and 60 staff at the discount store, which sold household goods and pet food, but also food for human consumption, his solicitor Gavin Cooper submitted.
Mr Donnelly said pest control experts engaged by the company decided the shop would have to be fumigated. However, he said his area manager told him the matter was “out of his hands” and that the instructions from head office were to “keep cleaning”.
Former warehouse manager Tom Mawdsley gave evidence that some 100 mousetraps were bought for the premises, and that he personally disposed of 20 mice in the week prior to his dismissal in early December 2022.
When environmental health officers first came to the shop in early July 2022 the company’s commercial manager told him the inspectors were “not to walk around or take pictures”, Mr Donnelly told the tribunal.
The inspectors returned with gardaí after a few hours – but the commercial manager told him that “under no circumstances” was Mr Donnelly to let them in, the complainant told the tribunal.
He added that the gardaí said they would prosecute him for refusing access to the pest control books and warehouse – a threat that caused him “enormous stress” even though no action followed.
The health inspectors issued a closure order on 9 September 2022 and lifted it on the 23rd of the month, the tribunal heard.
Mr Donnelly’s case was that he was “forced into a position of being uncooperative with the authorities, who were trying to investigate a serious public health problem”.
He complained to his bosses about being “put in a position of being instructed to lie to government officials” early in September 2022, his solicitor submitted.
Although the Mr Donnelly gave notice that month, he agreed to stay when he was promised another assistant manager, the tribunal heard.
Mr Donnelly’s evidence was the commercial manager came to the store on 13 September and asked about his withdrawn resignation letter. When the complainant said he had been left dealing with the infestation for six months with “nobody to help him”, the manager told him to report to work in the Homesavers store in Nenagh the following day instead, Mr Donnelly told the WRC.
Although the commercial manager claimed this was to assist his mental health, Mr Donnelly said it was known he didn’t drive in the wake of a car accident.
When he objected to Nenagh, the commercial manager responded by telling him to go there or there “would be no job for you”, Mr Donnelly added.
The complainant took sick leave the following day. He lodged a grievance, which was investigated and rejected, after which he resigned in December 2022, the tribunal heard.
The only witness called by the respondent was HR manager Carol Macartney, who accepted it was “a matter of public record” that there had been an issue with mice.
Her evidence was that the company sent “plenty of staff and senior management” to assist and that the closure order had been lifted.
The commercial manager said Mr Donnelly “seemed to be in a very bad state” and the company wanted to get him out of the situation by moving him to Limerick, Ms Macartney told the WRC.
Brendan Sheehy, the firm’s in-house solicitor, said in a submission: “It is astonishing that the respondent’s proactive measures in regard to the complainant’s mental wellbeing have been twisted into representing some kind of penalty or punishment imposed upon him, which is simply not the case,” the tribunal noted.
Mr Sheehy also submitted that claims that that the store was infested with mice as early as January 2022; that Mr Donnelly had told the firm about it and that it had failed to act were “material misrepresentations” on the part of the complainant.
He added that the case was “not about how it dealt with the infestation” and claimed that “money was the complainant’s motivation”.
Adjudicator Ewa Sobanska wrote in her decision: “Regrettably… the commercial manager did not attend the hearing. In fact, none of the managers directly involved in the matter attended the hearing to give evidence.”
She accepted Mr Donnelly’s “uncontested” evidence that he had raised the mouse infestation with his bosses repeatedly and also that he had objected to the company’s “instruction to obstruct authorities”.
She found the concerns were a protected act under the workplace safety legislation, and that imposing the move to Nenagh had been a detrimental act as a “direct result” of the health and safety complaint.
She noted that the uncontested evidence of the complainant was that the commercial manager was “fully aware” he didn’t drive since being in the car accident and that he was informed of the transfer in “quite a threatening manner”.
“Asking the complainant for his keys back and imposing a move to a location some 30 minutes’ drive farther, without any consultation cannot be reasonably perceived as an attempt to help the complainant’s mental condition,” Ms Sobanska wrote.
Declaring Mr Donnelly’s complaint “well founded”, she awarded him €30,000 in compensation for penalisation.
