Minister’s appointee to Inland Fisheries said he was not briefed on blackmail allegation
Former chief executive alleges he was blackmailed by sitting senator
One of two ministerial appointees who took over from a former board of Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) has said he was not briefed on an accusation by its ex-chief executive that he being blackmailed by a sitting senator.
Tom Barry was giving evidence under cross-examination on Friday at the Workplace Relations Commission as the agency defends complaints of whistleblower penalisation and unfair dismissal brought by its former chief executive, Francis O’Donnell.
Barry and another appointee, Seamus Neely, took the place of a former IFI board in February 2023 following the resignations of a number of directors, the WRC has heard.
O’Donnell’s case is that he suspended a senior employee pending an investigation into allegations of theft and fraud in the organisation raised in anonymous correspondence.
O’Donnell has said he reported to gardaí that he was being pressured to reinstate the senior employee.
This included “being blackmailed” by a sitting senator with an alleged threat to make public “very damaging” allegations about him, O’Donnell said.
A separate external investigation process commenced when O’Donnell himself was subject to a complaint, the tribunal heard.
His case is that the board’s decision to commence disciplinary action was an act of whistleblower penalisation – an allegation denied by IFI.
Cross-examining Barry today, O’Donnell read a part of a transcript of proceedings in the Seanad into the record in which the IFI chief executive was stated to be “targeting” an employee.
“The whole saga is not just disgusting, it’s rotten, corrupt,” the transcript read.
“Is it fair to say he [the speaker in the Seanad] was in possession of a significant amount of confidential information he shouldn’t have?” O’Donnell asked.
“Ideally from a governance perspective, of course not,” Barry replied.
O’Donnell then asked whether Barry had seen correspondence O’Donnell’s solicitor had sent in December 2022 setting out “issues with the same senator”.
O’Donnell said his solicitors had written “quite a detailed letter” to then-IFI chair, Prof Frances Lucy, on December 14th, 2022.
“That was never brought to your attention to do any handover at all?” O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell asked Barry whether he thought it “unusual” that nobody brought matters of “significant magnitude” which were on record in IFI to the attention of the ministerial appointees.
“The only comment I can make was if I was in the situation myself as CEO and I felt something needed to be brought to the attention of a new board, I presume I’d bring it to their attention,” Barry said.
IFI’s barrister Tiernan Lowey told a hearing on Friday that Barry and Neely were “completely unaware” of disclosures made by O’Donnell the year before to the Department of the Environment.
The same went for the new board chaired by Prof Tom Collins, to which Barry and Neely ceded responsibility in January 2024, Lowey submitted.
O’Donnell is pursuing complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, the Payment of Wages Act 1997, and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the State agency, where he was employed as chief executive from September 2020 to July 2025.
