A senior employee at a State-funded voluntary organisation for the disabled received regular tax-free payments in addition to her salary, an Employment Appeals Tribunal heard yesterday.
Ms Ann Kennedy, a former administrator with the Irish Council for People with Disabilities (ICPD), was given £500 a month for nearly two years in what were described as under-the-counter payments. Ms Kennedy, of Cherrywood Park, Clondalkin, Co Dublin, is taking a claim against the organisation under the Payment of Wages and the Unfair Dismissals Acts.
According to Mr Roddy Horan, counsel for the organisation, Ms Kennedy had a "private deal" with the then chairman of the organisation, Mr Frank Mulcahy, about the tax-free payments. They began when she was acting administrator and earning £24,000. The payments were described by Mr Horan as bogus travel expenses. Ms Kennedy had been absent from work through illness for five months in 1998 and three months in 1999, he said, and the payments were "wholly spurious and wholly unlawful".
Ms Kennedy, who had worked for the organisation since its inception in 1996, was appointed administrator in July 1997 under a two-year contract, with the promise of a salary review in December, the tribunal heard. In November she contacted a member of the human resources committee responsible for determining her salary increase, Mr Ciaran Corr, to tell him she was unhappy with the tax-free payments and wanted them regularised in her annual salary. Mr Corr told the hearing that until then he had no knowledge of the payments.
Ms Kennedy's salary was subsequently increased to £26,968, Mr Corr said, bringing it into line with the higher executive officer level in the civil service. Shortly after Mr Corr told Ms Kennedy of the pay rise, it was claimed that she contacted him to say that the body's financial committee, comprising the former chief executive, Mr Arthur O'Daly, and Mr Derek Farrell, had authorised that her salary be increased to £47,000.
That was more than the chief executive earned, Mr Corr said. Ms Kennedy was absent due to illness from January to July 1997 and before she returned to work she phoned Mr Corr again. He said he was "surprised, to say the least", to hear she had been earning £34,000 since January.
Cross-examined by Mr Martin Collins, for Ms Kennedy, Mr Corr agreed she had not wanted to be remunerated in that fashion.
Ms Kennedy's employment was terminated on July 31st last when the ICPD decided not to renew her contract. The case was adjourned until December.