The chief executive of a construction company has won over €180,000 after he was fired by its shareholders when he objected to millions of euro being paid to a director when subcontractors had downed tools over unpaid bills.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) found that Derrin Group Management Ltd had failed to present evidence of “any grounds” to justify the dismissal of Conor Gilligan, whose conduct the adjudicator said was “beyond reproach”.
Mr Gilligan secured the sum on foot of complaints to the tribunal under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 and the Payment of Wages Act 1991 against Derrin Group Management Ltd.
The complainant was dismissed without contractual notice from his €200,000-a-year job as chief executive of the Co Kildare-based firm at a shareholders’ meeting in November 2024, the tribunal heard.
He said in evidence to the Commission at a hearing last month that in 2022 he was appointed CEO of the firm, 50% of which was owned by Teamport Ltd, whose directors were also board members at Derrin Group Management Ltd.
Teamport became Derrin’s “primary shareholder” and advanced €15m in loans, he said.
Although all Derrin’s ongoing projects were “profitable” there were “periodic cashflow issues” from 2022 to 2024 which became a “considerable concern” in 2024.
“Subcontractors were not being paid or preferred for payment, which resulted in them downing tools,” he told the WRC. This caused delays and reduced profits, he said.
He discovered that sums of €1m and €2.3m were paid to Teamport Ltd – and later that the payments were being made to the “personal account” of one of Teamport’s directors, he said.
He directed the chief financial officer to stop making payments to that director and to prioritise paying construction-related creditors “over all other expenditure”. This was agreed at a board meeting on 11 September 2024, he said.
The director who had received the payments wrote an email to the complainant five days later complaining that other creditors were being paid ahead of him, the tribunal heard.
After telling the director he had an obligation to pay the suppliers, the director replied the money was his and he would do with it as he wished, Mr Gilligan said.
The complainant said he had a further concern about the “delayed or non-payment of VAT arising from house sales” amounting to €2.6m. There was already a €3.6m “legacy” VAT debt due to the Revenue Commissioners, he said.
When the complainant called for a board meeting on this, the director refused to allow it, he said. After he put his concerns about the VAT bills in writing, an extraordinary general meeting was called in October 2024 on a motion for the complainant’s removal as CEO.
On the day of the EGM on 8 November 2024 Mr Gilligan recused himself. The shareholders voted to dismiss him without notice for gross misconduct.
The CEO said he had no opportunity to respond to the charges before his case at the WRC and told the hearing they were “absurd” and “completely unfounded”.
Adjudication officer Bríd Deering found that the company had failed to present evidence of “any grounds, let alone substantial grounds, to justify the dismissal” and ruled the dismissal unfair.
“I am satisfied that the complainant’s conduct was beyond reproach,” she added, rejecting the firm’s stance that Mr Gilligan contributed to the dismissal.
Ms Deering awarded Mr Gilligan €125,581.94 – just under three-fifths of which was for his future losses in his new job – for the unfair dismissal.
She awarded him a further €57,844.28 for six months’ contractual notice which went unpaid on termination. In all, the company has been directed to pay Mr Gilligan €183,426.28.
Peter O’Brien BL appeared for Mr Gilligan. instructed by Ed Kelly of Holmes Solicitors. The company was represented by Una Clifford, instructed by John Carroll of Crowley Millar.
Evidence on dismissal grounds
The 2024 notice accused the CEO of “financial mismanagement” of one site; doubling the cost projection of a project to build a creche and “deliberately and consistently misleading the board” about the start of that project; and “bumping up the figure for works” connected with a former director.
Trevor Byrne, the company’s chief financial officer, said Mr Gilligan owned the site of the creche project referred to in the allegations raised at the EGM.
The witness’s evidence was that the original cost projection was done by someone else and that Mr Gilligan had “substantially increased the fit-out cost”.
However, Mr Byrne said it was “normal for costs to increase”, that the new estimate was known to all the directors, and that in the end, the project was finished only 3.5% over Mr Gilligan’s revised projection.
The main reason a particular housebuilding project was unprofitable was because the site had been shut down, the witness said. This was due to the money being sent to the director instead of the subcontractors, he added.
The chief operations officer, Pat McCarthy, said he had drawn up a cost estimate of €150,000 for the creche project which Mr Gilligan had increased to €250,000. When it was put to him by Mr Gilligan’s barrister that this was neither a surprise or unusual for the cost to increase, he agreed, the tribunal recorded.
His evidence was that it was the three Teamport directors who decided to dismiss Mr Gilligan.
The three Teamport Ltd directors did not attend either of two WRC hearings in December 2025 or February 2026. The company’s lawyers said the directors were all dealing with””personal or family-related health matters” on those dates.
The tribunal noted no medical evidence was furnished and proceeded to take evidence.
