Following the judgement that the former Ski Centre Manager Eirian Morris was unfairly dismissed the Shadow Secretary of State for Defence Nia Griffith MP spoke to Llanelli Online. She expressed her concern about the way in which the public perceive the County Council’s when dealing with whistle blowers. She said:
I am aware of Eirian’s case and I was very perturbed when I heard about it. I am Pleased it was recognised in court the awful ordeal that Eirian has had to go through. He was made redundant. He was an excellent loyal worker for the County Council. It does appear that proper procedures were simply not followed. We all understand that these are difficult times but that is why more than ever things need to be done fairly by the book. Where you have somebody with a huge amount of initiative and a huge amount of potential and has already given the county council a huge amount of service and had very good ideas on ways in which services could be developed in the future and then treated in the way he was, I am afraid it really does stink. I am glad Eirian was a member of the trade union and that that trade union took up and fought his case. I do have to question. How is it that a County Council has got itself into this mess. Surely they should have decent HR expertise. Surely they should have managers who understand what processes need to be followed. For them to be using public money going to court really when they could have avoided all of this by doing things correctly the first time round is a cause for major concern.
Speaking about the links to Pembrey Country Park and the allegations of misappropriation of money, unauthorised disposal of council property and failure in following procedures Nia Griffith said:
I think you need to listen to the people of Llanelli, Burry Port and Pembrey. What they are saying is that they do not trust the council. People have an instinct and they really do feel that when a whistle blower is trying to point something out that that should be taken seriously and not dismissed. There is a real concern that there is a potential link between Eirian being a whistle blower and his redundancy. People out there understand. They know what is going on. They are not stupid. They do worry that things are happening behind closed doors and that we don’t get told the truth. They worry that we don’t get told when the county council are in talks.
Editor
From Llanelli Wales. Worked in education and media for most of my career. Now working as a freelance journalist. Interested in World events, politics, education. Specialist area is social and journalistic photography.
