A fisheries officer said he was pursued to pay nearly €24,000 by an insurance company arising from a car crash in which he was driving a vehicle hired by the State agency he worked for but which had not been insured.
James Doherty maintained Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) was aware, soon after the crash near Letterkenny, Co Donegal in August 2021, that the vehicle was not covered by its insurance policy. However, he argued the organisation did not tell him and as a result he presented documents to gardaí that were not correct.
Doherty, from Buncrana, Co Donegal, is an assistant fisheries inspector with IFI. He told a Workplace Relations Commission hearing in Letterkenny that he was penalised, ostracised and singled out after he made protected disclosures regarding the insurance issue to both senior management in the organisation and the then minister forenvironment Eamon Ryan.
At the second day of the hearing on Tuesday, Ciaran Elders, counsel for Doherty, said a report for the IFI board showed it had been formally advised by its insurers on October 15th, 2021 that the vehicle was not insured.
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Elders asked his client when he had been formally notified of this. Doherty replied a year later, in October 2022, although a senator had told the Seanad the previous May about a number of IFI vehicles not being insured, including one that had been involved in a crash in Donegal.
Doherty said IFI knew this three months after the crash but did not tell gardaí. He said subsequently he was told by senior IFI personnel not to inform gardaí.
Counsel for IFI, Tiernan Lowey, said this would be strongly denied when a senior IFI official gave evidence in the case. In a statement on Monday, former IFI chief executive Francis O’Donnell said he categorically denied coercing Doherty not to report the insurance issue to gardaí.
Doherty said he received a letter from Axa Insurance in September 2023 which covered one of the other drivers in the crash. In the letter, Axa said it had paid €23,950 to its client and wanted reimbursement within 21 days on the basis responsibility rested with Doherty.
Doherty’s solicitor later wrote to IFI and it is understood the organisation dealt with the bill.
Doherty said he sent a submission to Ryan as the Department of the Environment had responsibility for IFI. He said the department commissioned an external company to carry out a report.
Elders said the Dáil Public Accounts Committee had been told, in December 2025, the report found that IFI had allowed an employee involved in a crash to present inaccurate documentation to gardaí. He said IFI had refuted the finding of “knowingly” allowing the staff member to provide invalid insurance details to gardaí.
Doherty has maintained that after making the protected disclosures, he was singled out and penalised. He told the hearing there had been an “over-the-top” reaction to what his counsel described as a minor oil spill in a minor stream in Letterkenny. He said no fish had been killed in the incident but senior management became directly involved when around the same time, there had been more serious incidents in Dublin and Cork.
Doherty said after undergoing serious knee surgery he had been placed on restricted duties. However, he had been instructed to accompany a land surveyor across boggy ground where they were confronted by an irate landowner with a stick and a rottweiler. He said he had not been briefed beforehand that the landowner was in a dispute with IFI. He said the landowner made remarks about him (Doherty) “driving uninsured and crashing into people”.
Doherty also said a complaint had been made by another IFI employee about covert cameras being placed in that employee’s area of responsibility.
Doherty’s counsel said the complaint identified two other IFI staff as installing the cameras, but it was decided that only his client should face an internal investigation.
“That’s what it says in black and white. There seemed a keenness to have me singled out,” Doherty said.
