Foley escapes trial linked to mass job cuts at Clerys
BUSINESSWOMAN Deirdre Foley will escape all criminal charges linked to mass redundancies at Clerys, after a judge’s decision yesterday.
The company boss had been waiting to go on trial, at Dublin District Court, since last May, in connection with hundreds of people losing their jobs at the iconic department store in 2015. But the case against her – along with co-defendants Mark Redmond and Clerys’s previous owner OCS Operations – kept getting postponed due to delays by the State in handing over key files.
Yesterday, Judge John Brennan ruled those delays left Ms Foley and her co-defendants ‘in the dark’ as to exactly what case was being made against them, meaning they hadn’t been given the right to information within a reasonable length of time that all who face a criminal hearing should get.
He said he could no longer keep delaying the trial. Striking out all criminal charges, the judge said both Ms Foley and Mr Redmond ‘are individuals peculiarly affected by having these charges extant [left unresolved] in that they are company directors with professional reporting obligations’.
The failed prosecution was first mounted by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and the Workplace Relations Commission. It was alleged that Ms Foley; Mr Redmond, of Belfry Dale, Citywest Road, Saggart, Co. Dublin; and OCS Operations, now in liquidation, broke protection of employment laws. Mr Redmond is an employee of D2 Private Ltd, a firm owned by Ms Foley.
In June 2015, OCS Operations petitioned the High Court for liquidation. As a result, 460 people lost their jobs – 130 of them directly employed by Clerys. The store was later bought by Natrium Ltd, in which Ms Foley had a 20% stake. Attempted prosecutions arising from the collective redundancies have been dogged with difficulties in recent months. The case against Ms Foley was first listed before Dublin District Court in April last year.
Judge Brennan said he had refused previous requests from Ms Foley and/or co-defendants to strike out the case when there were delays.
A separate prosecution involving six charges against OCS Operations director James Brydie, first launched last month, is unaffected by that ruling and is expected to proceed as normal.
Mr Brydie, of Kingsmere Road, London, stands accused of impeding and giving false or misleading information to a Workplace Relations Commission inspector as well as four counts of breaking protection-of-employment laws.