PROFESSOR PHILIP NOLAN has failed in his bid to secure a significant extension of a High Court order preventing his dismissal as director general at Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).

Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy said he plans to discharge his earlier order, preventing Nolan’s dismissal, but will not do so until he formally makes final orders in this application.

The judge also refused to grant orders permitting Nolan to return to work pending the determination of his court case.

In a ruling published this morning, Mr Justice Mulchay said SFI’s board was entitled to dismiss Nolan “for no reason at all” in accordance with the terms of his contract, but the reasons for its decision are “no doubt connected” to the “disruption” which arose after claims made against Nolan by five senior staff members last December.

In his ruling, the judge wrote: “The Board, it is not disputed, was entitled to dismiss the plaintiff, in accordance with his contractual terms, for no reason at all. However, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t suggest that it had no reason to do so.

The reasons it gives are, no doubt, connected with the disruption in the organisation which had arisen following the making of the protected disclosures.

“It may be that the reasons for the plaintiff’s dismissal and those allegations cannot be decoupled and the plaintiff may, at the trial of the action, be able to show that this was, in substance, a dismissal for misconduct.

“But on the state of the evidence to date, he has not succeeded in establishing a strong case likely to succeed that the Board’s decision was based on its conclusion that he was guilty of misconduct and that this was the basis for dismissing him.”

‘Grievously wronged’

On 30 May, the judge agreed to grant an interim injunction that temporarily reversed Nolan’s dismissal from SFI.

At that hearing, Senior Counsel Padraic Lyons, Nolan’s barrister, told the court that his client was “grievously wronged” by the “astonishing” decision by the SFI board.

Lyons said his client was given “absolutely no warning” that he would be dismissed prior to it happening in May. Nolan had been caught up in a “media storm” and “hasn’t been given the opportunity to defend himself”, Lyons added.

Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy said Lyons, on behalf of Nolan, “made a strong case likely to succeed”. He said, based on SFI’s own procedures, a disciplinary hearing should have taken place prior to Nolan’s dismissal.

At a hearing the next day, 31 May, Senior Counsel Mark Connaughton, on behalf of Science Foundation Ireland, highlighted the “unusual circumstances” of the case and said there was “a lot to be argued” about the case.

Connaughton, instructed by McCann Fitzgerald, told the court that SFI would like to note that “at no stage has any reference been made to the express written terms of the contact, and that was the only basis by which termination was effected”. 

The board of SFI made the decision to dismiss Nolan after considering the findings of an investigation into five misconduct allegations made by staff members against him, which he has strongly denied.

The complaints were made by five people via protected disclosures from 19 to 21 December 2023.

A subsequent investigation and report by Senior Counsel Tom Mallon referred to Nolan’s conduct as “inappropriate behaviour” but said it “fell short of bullying”, the court heard on 30 May.

The matter will be back in court on 4 July to finalise matters and deal with costs.