Cork City Council’s treatment of its long-serving finance chief fell short of proper standards, the High Court has found, after the authority tried to move him out of his post and then strip away key parts of his role.
John Hallahan, who has been Head of Finance since 2016, was told in May that he would be moved into a new position called Head of Cost Transformation.
The proposal arrived without consultation and came as Chief Executive Valerie O’Sullivan warned senior managers about what she described as a serious financial challenge facing the council.
Mr Hallahan leads a 68-person directorate responsible for budget preparation, capital appraisals, financial planning and oversight of major spending areas. His department manages about 16.6 per cent of the council’s overall budget.
The CEO said she wanted him in the new cost-focused role, reporting directly to her. He replied that the role had no clear structure. The next day senior management were told he would be moved, and that his subordinate, Jeremy Canty, would take over as Head of Finance for a year.
Solicitors acting for Mr Hallahan wrote to the council invoking the grievance procedure and asking that the status quo be maintained. The council disputed that any grievance had been raised and insisted the reassignment would go ahead.
Mr Justice Micheál O’Connell said the council’s two-step approach, first trying to move Mr Hallahan out of his job and then reallocating core functions to Mr Canty, had a humiliating and degrading effect on him.
He said this was made worse by personal criticisms of him in sworn affidavits.
The judge noted that the Braganza duty requires employers to use contractual discretion honestly, in good faith, and not in an arbitrary or heavy-handed way.
Interim orders were granted preventing the council from assigning Mr Hallahan’s duties elsewhere. The council later withdrew his appointment to the new role and instead appointed Mr Canty as Head of Cost Transformation.
New delegation orders then transferred significant budget functions to him.
The court ruled that Hallahan had made out a fair question for trial and froze any shift of his core duties until the action is decided.