A former head of human resources at a State agency will maintain she was pestered and bombarded by the then chief executive to provide assurances he could return to another position when his time in the top role ended, an employment tribunal has been told. Counsel for Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on Thursday that its former head of HR, Róisín Bradley, would also say the then chief executive Francis O’Donnell met her in a hotel car park and gave her a pre-prepared letter to sign, setting out such a right of return to a role of regional director. O’Donnell said he rejected that this had happened. Opening his cross-examination of O’Donnell on the fifth day of a case at the WRC, counsel for Inland Fisheries Ireland Tiernan Lowey said Bradley would attribute her IFI resignation to the behaviour of O’Donnell in pestering and hounding her about a document with assurances that he could return to his previous post in the organisation after his term ended.However, O’Donnell said he did not accept such claims and that they were incorrect.“If Róisín Bradley was of that belief, it was open [to her] to say that to the board. Nobody pesters Róisín Bradley. We often disagreed on issues, fundamentally, but had to find a way to work together ... That’s a normal relationship to have at a senior management level. Róisín had a strong personality.”He said he thought Bradley was a very high performer and that he never had an issue when she sought to work from home for family or other reasons and had even authorised her to work from abroad on one occasion.He said there was nothing to support the claims made by Lowey.“ [It was] never documented and I don’t think there’s anyone at IFI that ever witnessed that. I absolutely refute that”, O’Donnell said.The hearing heard O’Donnell was appointed as IFI chief executive in 2020 on a five-year contract. O’Donnell said he had previously held a permanent position as a river basin director. He said he had been assured by Bradley in conversations and in correspondence that he had not resigned from his previous post and could go back at a later date.Lowey said Bradley would maintain that the former chief executive had asked to meet her privately in the car park of a hotel in Athlone and sought her to sign a pre-prepared letter setting out assurances that he could return to his earlier position.“That is not true,” O’Donnell replied.Lowey said Bradley would maintain that after O’Donnell provided her with the pre-prepared document, he “bombarded her with calls and texts” to provide some form of written assurances.O’Donnell rejected this assertion and asked if Inland Fisheries Ireland could provide a log of any such texts and calls.Lowey said another senior IFI employee, Suzanne Campion, would say Bradley had raised concerns with her about O’Donnell providing the pre-prepared letter and that she had taken a photograph of it on her phone. O’Donnell denied he had prepared any such document.Lowey said Campion would say Bradley told her that following “significant pressure”, she had sent the former chief executive a letter on December 11th, 2023, outlining that he could return to his earlier role. “She said she wanted you [O’Donnell] off her back,” he said.O’Donnell told the hearing he would never have taken the chief executive role in Inland Fisheries Ireland for the fixed five-year term if he did not believe he had assurances he could return to his previous role afterwards. He said there was a precedent for this as his predecessor as chief executive had returned to another role after he left the top position.O’Donnell claims he was unfairly dismissed by IFI and was penalised after making protected disclosures under whistleblower legislation. Lowey said his clients would maintain they did not know anything about O’Donnell making any protected disclosures to the Department of Environment and then minister, Eamon Ryan.