Despite receiving a salary of £105,000 per year, nearly Rs 1 crore, an employee in Dublin has filed a lawsuit against his employer because he is “bored” at work. Dermot Alastair Mills, the finance manager at Irish Rail, claims that his responsibilities have been significantly reduced since he made a secure discovery nine years ago. He now spends the majority of his shift “reading the paper, eating sandwiches, and going for walks,” he says.
Mr. Mills testified in a hearing under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 on December 1st, claiming that he had been punished for speaking out against Irish Rail and that this punishment had left him with very little work.
Furthermore, Irish Rail stated during the hearing that it did not punish Mr. Mills even though he did not make a protected disclosure. They claimed that they only have the authority to decide the scope of any alleged penalties because Mr. Mills was unsuccessful in obtaining a more senior position during a 2018 recruitment process.
According to John Keenan, a former Irish Rail HR director, and labor relations expert, despite the purported reduction in Mr. Mills’ duties, his client was still being punished at work. The employee testified that from around 2000 until the financial crisis in 2006 and 2007, he was in charge of a total budget of about £216,000.
According to the Irish Independent, after receiving a promotion in 2010, he continued to complain about being “bullied” before going on sick leave in 2013. He agreed to return to work after reaching an agreement with the company that he would keep his position and pay.
Despite this arrangement, Mr. Mills claims that his responsibilities have been “cut down to nothing” after he was in charge of a debt portfolio worth £6.9 million when he started that is now only worth £35,000. In his own words: “Debtors had some issues, and I noticed a few things. I made an effort to express my concerns everywhere I went.” Mr. Mills, on the other hand, claims that he lost authority over the debts after making a protected disclosure to the Transport Minister in December.
He claimed that after publishing the internal report, he was “stopped” from accepting responsibility for the fixed assets. He claims to be feeling “isolated” at his workplace right now.
And he now works from home two days a week, with the other three days spent at the office. “If I go to the office, I get there at 10 a.m.,” Mr. Mills explained. I buy a sandwich as well as two newspapers, the Times and the Independent. I switch on my computer, walk into my cubicle, and check my emails.
