A senior Aer Lingus manager has denied that a disciplinary investigation into a pilot he demoted was a “whitewash” of alleged whistleblower penalisation.
The manager, Eamon Kierans, said that he “had to be reminded” by human resources what a protected disclosure was at the disciplinary hearing.
Kierans was under cross-examination for a second day on a claim at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) for whistleblower penalisation being pursued against Aer Lingus by Airbus A320 pilot Declan McCabe.
He was disciplined for what the airline deemed breaches of his air safety reporting obligations while flying in command of an Airbus A321xlr, which failed to link up with a radio navigation beacon coming into Dublin Airport from Munich on June 8th, 2023.
READ MORE
McCabe’s case is that the disciplinary process pursued against him was penalisation for complaining about a senior pilot, Colm Wynne, being involved in investigating safety reports. McCabe says Wynne chaired a disciplinary process that demoted him in 2011, before the sanction was reduced to a final written warning on appeal.
Counsel for McCabe, David Byrnes , put it to Kierans that when the witness held a disciplinary hearing with his client on November 3rd, 2023, his client tried to tell him about his concerns.
Has the Irish building sector got themselves hooked on Government subsidies?
McCabe pointed out that he “made a protected disclosure” implicating “the same two people” who were involved in investigating the June 8th, 2023 flight with the fatigue-related demotion in 2011.
Kierans’s reply, according to a disputed set of minutes prepared by McCabe, was: “What exactly is a protected disclosure?” the tribunal heard.
Byrnes put it to him that this showed the witness “did not know” what a protected disclosure was at the time he heard the disciplinary case.
“I needed to be reminded what it was,” Kierans said. “Okay, I didn’t know,” he said after being questioned further.
He said the human resources legal case manager who was with him at the disciplinary hearing, Carmel Byrne, explained it was about “whistle-blowing”.
His evidence was that protected disclosures did not have any link to the matter at issue in the disciplinary process.
“I’m just looking at the issues relating to the incident that happened with the aeroplane on 8 June. I wasn’t looking at anything to do with protected disclosures,” the witness said.
“You didn’t care. You did not want to give it the light of day ... you whitewashed it,” Byrnes said.
“I didn’t whitewash it,” Kierans said, though he accepted it wasn’t given consideration in his disciplinary outcome report.
“I analysed what went on, genuinely, and I reject the assertion Byrnes made that anything was contrived against his client,” he said.
In his disciplinary findings, Kierans was critical of what he said was McCabe’s “rejection of internal safety management systems” and his “refusal to engage with internal persons whilst reporting inaccurate or irrelevant information to Air Nav Ireland”, the tribunal heard.
The adjudication officer has adjourned the hearings pending the selection of resumed dates later this year.
Byrnes is instructed by Setanta Solicitors in the matter while counsel for Aer Lingus, Tom Mallon, is led by Arthur Cox LLP.
Kierans confirmed in evidence that the disciplinary investigation’s conclusion was that McCabe’s aircraft was “flying in the wrong direction ... until air traffic control intervened” on the day.
McCabe told the WRC last year he and his first officer had already started their turn back to try and pick up the beacon before a radio call from air traffic control, and that it was within his authority to decide no safety report was warranted on the day.
He called it “a non-event from a flying point of view”.
The parties dispute the most likely reason for June 8th, 2023 event, which was ultimately determined to be a “low severity” occurrence.
The Aer Lingus disciplinary sanction was upheld on appeal, and McCabe returned to flying duties as first officer in 2024, the tribunal heard.
