A former senior manager who spent more than three decades working for businessman Larry Goodman’s ABP Food Group has alleged he was unfairly ousted from his €200,000-a-year job there two years ago.

His employment rights case is set to proceed in public later in the year before the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) despite a bid by the company on Monday to hold the hearing in private.

During proceedings, the press were asked to leave for a period of time as an application was made to have the case anonymised and the hearings conducted in private. The application was denied.

Emmanuel Keenan, the former group boning manager at Ireland’s largest beef processor, is pursuing complaints under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 and the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 against Anglo Beef Processors Ireland ULC.

John O’Donnell, appearing with Aaron Shearer for the complainant, confirmed to adjudicator Catherine Byrne that his client was earning €200,000 a year for a 40-hour week as group boning manager at ABP.

Keenan, counsel said, had his employment terminated on 26th July, 2024. The exact circumstances were not publicly disclosed to the hearing today.

Keenan, a senior manager overseeing butchering at the Goodman beef empire, had more than 36 years service, having first started there on 10th March, 1988.

Examining the WRC complaint form, Byrne noted that the statutory complaints, filed on 30th October, 2024, were in “still on time” as a challenge to the termination the preceding July.

O’Donnell said his client had pursued an internal appeal to the company following his dismissal, which was rejected in August 2024 and accounted for any “delay” to the filing of the complaints.

Byrne noted the attendance of John Moloney, the chief executive of the ABP Food Group, as well as its non-executive chairman Frank Stephenson and chief people officer Sarah-Jane Fulton at the hearing.

Éinde O’Donnell of Alastair Purdy & Co Solicitors, for the respondent, told adjudicator Catherine Byrne that he wanted to make preliminary applications.

These included a motion that the decision in the case be anonymised and the hearings conducted in private.

O’Donnell then asked that the press be directed to leave the hearing room at Lansdowne House in Dublin 4 “before we get into detail”.

Byrne directed the press to leave at 11.40am and heard from the parties over the course of an hour and forty minutes before concluding the preliminary hearing.

She declined the respondent’s application for a hearing in private and adjourned the case.

The matter is now set to be heard in public over five days in December.