An accountant, who told a tribunal her employer of 17 years informed her she was out of a job and then “laughed” when she asked about statutory redundancy, has won more than €25,000 for unfair dismissal.

Siobhán McDonagh secured the sum on foot of a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission against James P McCann Ireland Ltd in a decision published on Friday.

McDonagh, the tribunal heard, was earning just over €50,000 as a financial controller for the company.

Founder Jim McCann once had interests in 12 different businesses, including amusement arcades, private members’ clubs, a bingo hall and the Kimble Gaming arcade machine factory in Dundalk, but his family was now left with just two arcades in Dublin – both in “extreme financial difficulties”, the tribunal was told by managing director, Seoirse McCann.

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McDonagh said she was “laughed at” when she asked about her lump sum after being told she was being made redundant in January this year. “He said no: I would have to claim my redundancy off the State.”

Despite receiving her redundancy from the Social Protection Fund, she said her understanding was that the company was “doing well”.

“I probably shouldn’t be saying this. It was a cash business, so it was what they were putting through the banks then. At the time I was there, the company was doing well,” she said. She said that it had been “profitable” when she was there.

After the closure of a bingo hall in Dundalk last year, the business was servicing just two arcades in Dublin,” Seoirse McCann told the tribunal.

“At the time, Siobhán was the only full-time office worker outside day-to-day operations. We felt if we outsourced the work, it would reduce our costs. The saving was significant; it would have saved us around €30,000 per year,” McCann said.

In her decision, Glazier-Farmer accepted the company was suffering a “downturn” and that there was a redundancy situation but ruled there were “significant procedural defects” in the termination.

She ruled McDonagh had been unfairly dismissed and awarded her €25,177.62.