EBS pension trustee's dismissal case adjourned

Proceedings by an Educational Building Society (EBS) pension trustee aimed at restraining her dismissal from the society have been adjourned for a week at the High Court.

Mary Devine claims moves to discharge her are an attempt to prevent her pursuing matters arising from her discovery of "financial irregularities" in the EBS pension scheme.

She claims the irregularities include transactions which provided for the funding of the pension packages of two retired EBS directors from the staff pension scheme.

Mr Justice Paul Gilligan yesterday continued for another week an interim order granted last week to Ms Devine (52), of Merrion Village, Merrion Road, Dublin, which restrains her dismissal from the EBS, where she has worked for some 35 years.

Most recently, she worked as manager of the EBS securities department.

At the request of John O'Donnell SC, for Ms Devine, and with the consent of Roddy Horan SC, for the EBS, the judge adjourned the case for a week to allow the EBS to file a replying affidavit to that of Ms Devine's.

In separate proceedings, Ms Devine has sued the EBS for damages arising from the manner in which it addressed her grievances as a result of which, it is alleged, she has sustained personal injuries.

At last week's hearing Mr O'Donnell said that after Ms Devine discovered the irregularities and brought them to the attention of authorities in the society, she was passed over for upgrading and promotion and was also the subject of bullying and harassment by certain staff.

As a result of the hostility she experienced, she had suffered stress-related illness, was off work and had undergone counselling, counsel said. It had taken her some four years to recover.

However, when Ms Devine had presented herself as fit to resume work earlier this month, she was asked by the company to see a psychiatrist. She did so and was cleared to resume work on a phased basis.

However, she had stated she could not work with those staff members who had bullied her. The EBS had said in a letter of June 9th last that her functions could not be carried out without interaction with the staff members complained of and that her contract of employment "stands discharged".

Mr O'Donnell said there was no claim of misconduct against Ms Devine and she was unsure what "discharged" meant. She believed the company intended to terminate her employment.

In an affidavit, Ms Devine said she became a pension trustee member of the EBS pension fund in 1994. In January 1995 she discovered that vital information about the split of the fund and the creation of a new managers' scheme had been withheld from her but provided to other non-member trustees. She believed the transfer value of that transaction was €3,379,000 and that the transfer was deliberately withheld from her.

When a fund is split and funds transferred out in that manner, the prior consent of members was required but this was never sought nor granted for that transaction, she said.

In January 1995 she learned the staff pension fund had plunged into a deficit of some €1.7 million. She believed the "misappropriation" of monies regarding two principal transactions had contributed to that deficit.

One of those transactions involved the funding from the staff fund of the pension package of Henry O'Dwyer, a director of the EBS who retired in 1993. She said that while Mr O'Dwyer remained a member of the staff fund and was entitled to receive such a package, senior management should have funded the managers' pension fund to the level required to fund Mr O'Dwyer's pension package on retirement. That did not occur and the funding of his package from the staff fund had an adverse effect on that fund.

Monies were also transferred out of the staff pension plan around January 1992 to fund the retirement package of Noel Windle, a director of the EBS, she said. Mr Windle was not a member of the plan and had no entitlement to receive such monies, she added.

Ms Devine said she had, at several meetings in 1995, 1996 and 1997, sought explanations for these matters but had received no satisfactory explanation. Attempts were made at the meetings to prevent her from pursuing the issue and her discovery of the irregularities met with hostility and animosity.

She also said she had no option but to ask the pensions board to investigate the matters she had raised. A report by KPMG accountants in 2002 had identified serious matters of concern for the members of the pension scheme. However, certain vital and material facts were withheld from KPMG which rendered some of the conclusions of its report unsafe.