A fisheries officer has said he was treated as “a black sheep, a leper and outcast” after he made a protected disclosure to his senior management and former minister Eamon Ryan, a Workplace Relations Commission hearing has been told. James Doherty, an assistant inspector with Inland Fisheries Ireland, said within a few days of making a disclosure to Francis O’Donnell, then chief executive of the State agency, a complaint had been made against him regarding the use of covert cameras in Donegal. Doherty said, separately, that a superior in the agency had told a colleague it would be better if Doherty left as he had “pissed off a lot of people”.Doherty also maintained his team in north Donegal had been left as a back-up while an investigation into illegal drift netting near Árainn Mhór was given to another district. He said this involved an Inland Fisheries Ireland officer going undercover by bringing his family with him in a caravan to the area.Doherty said another fisheries employee had complained the covert cameras had been used to secretly photograph him. He said it was widely known this staff member was a very close friend of the former chief executive. Doherty maintained a subsequent investigation found no evidence the cameras had been used to photograph the complainant. However, he said, it had concluded that he had not followed IFI’s policy and procedures and this posed “a significant reputational risk” for the agency. Doherty argued the investigation had been flawed and he believed he had been targeted. He said he had been following instructions of a more senior manager in deploying the cameras and that the two staff members who actually installed the equipment were never interviewed. Asked by his counsel Ciaran Elders if he believed it was a coincidence that the complaint had happened a few days after his protected disclosure, Doherty replied: “No.” Doherty, from Buncrana in Co Donegal, has claimed he was penalised, singled out and ostracised after he submitted protected disclosures to Ryan and to his own senior management. The protected disclosures regarded a controversy involving more than a dozen officially hired vehicles that had been assigned to staff without insurance cover.Doherty had been involved in a crash in August 2021 while driving one of the uninsured vehicles.He told the hearing in Sligo on Friday that he loved his job but he felt he was seen “as a black sheep” and that his career with the agency after 15 years was over. He said he had been offered a job with the State’s separate sea fisheries protection service. He said there were lots of rumours he would either be leaving or demoted on foot of the disciplinary investigation over the camera complaint.He said a superior began including one of Doherty’s staff in emails to him. He believed IFI was “filling my shoes”. He maintained a more senior officer told one of his colleagues that “it would be best if I left the organisation as I had pissed off a lot of people”. On Thursday Doherty’s counsel had alleged there had been witness intimidation by Inland Fisheries and one employee who had been scheduled to give evidence on his client’s behalf was now afraid to do so. He had contended that the agency had also withheld subsistence payments to those potential witnesses for the month of April. IFI strongly refuted the allegations of witness intimidation and said staff had been told on June 4th that the allowances would be paid.On Friday WRC adjudicator Shay Henry said he was not prepared to accept that a person had been intimidated into withdrawing from giving evidence unless the individual was prepared to come forward to say so.The case will resume in September.