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news
Doon, Co Roscommon (Google Maps)Drink driver who left two cyclists with life-changing injuries wins unfair dismissal case
An electrician who was sacked by Irish Rail while serving a prison sentence for crashing into a group of cyclists while drunk and uninsured, leaving two of them with life-changing injuries, has been awarded €4,000 in compensation after winning his case for unfair dismissal.
Muiris Flynn, from Geevagh in Co. Sligo, was sentenced in October 2019 to four years in prison, with the final 30 months suspended, and banned from driving for eight years after pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm to two cyclists, as well as drink driving and driving without insurance.
Flynn crashed into a group of female cyclists in Doon, Roscommon, on 24 September 2017 after losing control of his father’s car on a straight stretch of road. Áine O’Connor and Catherine Carey were flung into the air as they were struck from behind by Flynn, with both cyclists sustaining life-changing injuries in the horrifying collision.
Ms O’Connor, who had given birth 11 weeks before the collision and who was initially unresponsive after the crash, suffered a broken pelvis and broken leg while Ms Carey fractured her spine. As the Irish Times reported in 2020, both women continued to experience pain over two years after the collision and have either been unable to return to work or forced to work reduced hours.
At the time of the sentencing, Ms Carey said that she still endured persistent pain throughout her body, had a noticeable deformity in her spine, and suffered from impaired concentration and memory, headaches, dizzy spells, and an inability to converse with more than one person at a time, including her children.
A secondary school teacher before the incident, Ms Carey said her inability to work had resulted in missed mortgage payments and forced her to take out a loan to cover child-care.
Immediately after the collision, Flynn stopped to apologise and offered help. He told police at the scene that he had been drinking the previous night, while an alcohol test showed he had 80mg of alcohol per 100mls of breath.
In October 2020, the Court of Appeal found that Flynn’s original sentence – four years in prison, 30 months of which were suspended – was unduly lenient. However, rather than increase the custodial element of his sentence, Flynn (who had been released from prison and gained a new job by the time of the appeal) was instead fined €20,000.
> Edinburgh bus driver sacked after knocking cyclist off bike loses unfair dismissal case
On Thursday, the Workplace Relations Commission awarded the electrician €4,000 in compensation from his previous employers Irish Rail for unfair dismissal, the Irish Independent and Sticky Bottle have reported.
The employment tribunal rejected the rail operator’s argument that Flynn’s imprisonment had made it impossible for him to fulfil his employment contract.
Irish Rail, who told the tribunal that they had been advised not to open disciplinary proceedings against the electrician, had written to Flynn in prison in March 2020, several months into his sentence, to inform him that his employment was being terminated later that month.
At a hearing earlier this year, the railway’s solicitor John Brosnan said: “We were advised to wait a period of time and then the business made a decision that they had waited long enough in respect of filling the position and a lack of certainty over the case and what was going to happen in Mr Flynn’s circumstance.”
However, the Workplace Relations Commission adjudicating officer Brian Dolan concluded this week that Irish Rail’s argument that Flynn’s imprisonment had “frustrated” his employment contract was contradicted by the company’s decision to delay giving him his notice until four months into his sentence.
According to Dolan, Flynn – who continued to work for Irish Rail between the time of the crash in 2017 and his sentencing two years later – told his employers in advance that he was likely to be jailed and that while his absence from work was “hardship and an inconvenience” for Irish Rail, it did “not result in a requirement” for his employment to be terminated.
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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15 comments
My sympathies are with his victims. They continue to suffer from their injuries with pain and serious economic hardships.
ffs..regardless of why he was jailed, how can an employer not be right for sacking him? At the very least he failed to turn up for work for 2yrs!! Is being in jail now equal to being long term sick? Perhaps he should have received state benefit.
He had significant prior warning that he was not going to be able to turn up though. If you agreed with your employer that you were going to take a 2 year vacation, and they agreed that was acceptable, would it be fair to sack you when you jump on the plane?
And I agree that keeping one's job after such a crime does seem unfair, and it makes sense that an employer should be able to dismiss someone in such cases, who decides what is considered a dismissable offence?
It sounds to be like the employer didn't follow an acceptable process and the employee got a fair payout because if that - €4,000 wouldn't even cover loss of earnings for the time period this person is likely to be job hunting. I hope all potential employers will do a basic internet search and choose another candidate.
His employer may have been told but that doesn't mean that they agreed to a 2 years absence.
It would seem likely that they didnt agree and therefore were well within their rights to terminate his contract.
No doubt the guy got legal aid to pursue this farce.
No legal aid for employment cases in Englad - though they might do it differently in Ireland of course.
The point is that by keeping him on the books for four months of his sentence they indicated a de facto acceptance that he would remain in their employment despite being in prison - presumably on a form of gardening leave - and also that his absence was not "frustrating" their ability to carry out their business effectively, the grounds on which they sought to terminate his agreement. Of course it sticks in the craw given his heinous offence, but in this case it would appear that it's the employer, rather than the law, that's an ass.
I dont think that would be the case, as that 4months could just be the time frame for the HR process of terminating his contract to be enacted through.
I dont work in HR, but I was friends with a union rep who often fought unfair dismissal cases, and never lost, and the absolutely critical thing is the company have to follow their documented process at every step, and the moment they dont follow a step in that process even if it seems a totally acceptable reasonable thing theyve done, is the moment you are open to court claims like this, and the court will always find against the company for not following its process.
and it could have been as an example something silly like the process said he should be given a verbal warning face to face first, and they didnt do that because no-one went to prison to see him to tell him that.
and the scale of the payout is absolutely of the company had the right to sack him but didnt follow the process properly, by the sounds of advice that they maybe thought they didnt need to follow because the guy was in jail already.
Often contracts of employment will have get-out clauses that involve instant dismissal for things such as "bringing the company into disrepute" or even specifying custodial sentences. If the company has such a clause, then they don't need to follow the warning procedures and can move straight to the firing of them.
Good news that he paid the 4,000 Euros straight to his victims....
"Ms O’Connor, who had given birth 11 weeks before the collision and who was initially unresponsive after the crash, suffered a broken pelvis and broken leg while Ms Carey fractured her spine."
No, she didn't fracture her spine, it was done for her by Flynn. Please, we criticise other media quite enough for their failures to attribute blame, so I'm surprised to read this.
Bit of a nothing story. Employer forgets to fire employee who went to prison.
Nothing really to do with the driving offense itself.
True, but we are in a sorry state when being in jail is deemed no reason for losing one's job. What next, being dead?
Including the dead in employment figures could significantly boost confidence in the UK economy at such a trying time. Not a bad idea, that!
Their output and usefulness to the economy would certainly be better than MPs too!
We had a case in Belgium where a guy was working as a low level civil servant. The office where he worked was closed down and he was supposed to start work at a different post.
Due to a snafu, the administration could not prove (15 years down the line) that they had sent him a letter ordering him to report at the new office. The manager over there noticed that the guy didn't report for duty but assumed he had quit or was at another post so didn't pursue the matter.
He cashed his monthly paycheck for 15 years, staying at home and starting a pub. Then he contacted his employer and notified them of his intention to retire. The administration woke up with a start and claimed back 15 years of pay + demanded dismissal for dereliction of duty. If that happens, the civil servant loses his pension rights.
The court ruled that the govt could not prove that he had received an order to report for duty. The guy claimed that he had patiently waited at home for 5 years to get the call, then he had started a pub. It apparently was not up to him to call and ask around....
My thoughts exactly; pointless story.