Asian chef subjected to unfair dismissal awarded €30,150
A Dublin Asian restaurant unfairly dismissed a long serving chef after he allegedly directed that roast duck be reheated in a microwave and that he continued to prepare cooked food that had fallen onto the kitchen floor.
At the Workplace Relations Commission, Adjudicator Breiffni O'Neill ordered Ecoco Asian Kitchen Limited, trading as Ecoco Asian Kitchen, to pay Tommy Chee King Eng €30,150 for his unfair dismissal for gross misconduct on June 25, 2025.
In his findings, Mr O'Neill said the allegations against Mr Chee King Eng were confined to hygiene and food‑safety issues - that food which had fallen to the floor was not discarded by Mr Chee King Eng but was in fact served to a customer.
Mr O'Neill said that the other allegations against Mr Chee King Eng was that a roast duck was reheated using a microwave rather than by the method preferred by the employer and that further hygiene concerns - head or hand hygiene and the handling of a phone while cooking - were later identified.
Mr O'Neill stated that he was of the view that, even taking the allegations at their height "they fall far short of the type of serious and deliberate misconduct capable of justifying dismissal, let alone summary dismissal".
He said that they concerned isolated lapses in food handling practice and none resulted in any customer complaint, harm, or regulatory concern.
"Any reasonable employer would have considered proportionate corrective steps rather than proceeding directly to termination," he added.
In his findings, Mr O'Neill also highlighted the employer staging - or attempting to stage - a disciplinary meeting in the restaurant's tiny storeroom/coat closet on June 23, 2025 and the employer issued its dismissal letter to Mr Chee King Eng two days later on June 25, 2025.
Mr O’Neill said that holding (or attempting to hold) the disciplinary meeting in a customer area, then proposing the kitchen, and finally a tiny storeroom/coat‑closet "fell well short of the standard needed to give effect to the Code’s requirements of fair procedures and natural justice".
In his case, Mr Chee King Eng said that during the short exchange that followed, he and his daughter explained why the hearing could not proceed fairly in those conditions.
Mr Chee King Eng alleged that when his daughter attempted to clarify matters, a manager attempted to video-record her on a mobile phone before being told to stop.
The encounter lasted approximately ten minutes before they left the premises.
In his findings, Mr O'Neill found that the overall process "cannot be characterised as fair or reasonable".
He said that moreover for an employee with long service and no prior disciplinary history, "an employer would ordinarily be expected to consider alternatives to dismissal such as retraining, closer supervision, or a warning".
Mr O'Neill said that there is no evidence that the employer considered any such alternatives.
He said that accordingly, "I find both that the employer has not shown that the dismissal was within the range of responses open to a reasonable employer, and the significant procedural shortcomings identified above fall short of the standards required by natural justice".
"I therefore find that the dismissal was unfair," he stated.
Mr Chee King Eng commenced employment as a chef at the restaurant on September 1, 2015 and was paid a weekly wage of €600.
The employer in the case is a small restaurant operator that assumed control of the undertaking where Mr Chee King Eng worked at the end of April 2025.
In calculating the quantum of compensation, Mr O’Neill found that €30,150 award reflects that the dismissal being both substantively and procedurally unfair; Mr Chee King Eng’s negligible contribution to the dismissal; and a 25% reduction for insufficient mitigation based on his very narrow job‑search geography.
Mr O'Neill awarded an additional €2,400 to Mr Chee King Eng after finding that he did not receive his minimum notice entitlements when he was dismissed.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
