NCT worker sacked over car re-test

AN NCT inspector who was sacked for arranging to re-test his friend’s car has lost an unfair dismissal claim.

The car had failed the test the first time. The inspector passed the car the second time and asked a colleague to print out the pass certificate so that it couldn’t be attributed to him, a hearing of the Workplace Relations Commission heard.

Last July, the National Car Test inspector asked his team leader if he could bring his friend’s car for a re-test at Deansgrange Test Centre in Dublin. He was told that this would be a breach of his employer’s Code of Integrity, and he was directed ‘not to have anything to do with the vehicle’.

However, the following week, he drove the car to a garage and asked a worker there to drive it to Arklow Test Centre, where he was working. When the car arrived, he carried out a visual inspection, which the car had previously failed. He then asked another inspector to print out an NCT certificate for the vehicle.

The mechanic who had driven the car to the centre then brought it back to the garage, and the NCT inspector drove it to his friend’s house. The incident came to his manager’s attention when he noticed that the vehicle inspector had not driven his own car to work on the day of the re-test. The inspector, who had received a written warning over a separate incident, was later dismissed.

He filed a complaint for unfair dismissal, arguing that his punishment was too severe for a ‘technical’ breach. While he understood that he couldn’t drive a friend’s car to a test centre himself, he believed there was nothing stopping him from getting someone else to drive it.

WRC adjudication officer Niamh O’Carroll Kelly said that this was ‘not credible’.