A predawn Garda raid on the home of a leading restaurateur last December found personal documents belonging to a migrant chef who has said he was “never made aware” of a debit card in his name, a tribunal has heard.
Fahid Saleem, codirector of his family’s award-winning Pakistani curry house group, Daata, told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) he had “zero knowledge” that his wife had been given the documents belonging to the chef, her orphaned cousin Mohammad Usman Ghani.
The WRC noted sworn evidence from Mr Ghani, a commis chef brought to Ireland on a work permit in 2023, that he knew nothing of a debit card for a bank account into which his wages were being paid, and only got access “thanks to the guards”.
The disclosures were made during a WRC hearing into a series of workplace rights claims by Mr Ghani against his former employer Mirha & Aliha Ltd, trading as Daata Restaurant, which have now been “amicably resolved”.
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Mr Ghani, who was represented by Sylwia Nowakoska and Pretty Ndawo of the Migrant Rights Centre of Ireland, claimed his wages were “withheld” while he was working at its takeaway and restaurant in Bray, Co Wicklow for “about 70 hours a week”.
He said company director Fahid Saleem “was putting pressure on me all the time”. “There were dishes I would make – he would say: ‘Make it again, it’s not okay’, time and time, again and again,” he said.
Mr Saleem would remind him “again and again; your work permit is on us, your accommodation is from us”, he said.
In his evidence to the tribunal, Mr Saleem said: “I treat all my staff… as part of my family, and I would never threaten, harass or bully or annoy any of them.”
Mr Saleem said he went to significant expense to bring Mr Ghani, his wife’s cousin, into Ireland in July 2023. Mr Ghani was taken in by his wife’s family after the deaths of his parents when he was “very young”, the witness said.
He said he “would not be able to get the orders out” in the takeaway if he was forcing Mr Ghani to cook meals “again and again”.
He denied threatening to deport Mr Ghani or “put him out of the country” and said that would be “very stupid”.
Mr Ghani said he decided on August 1st last year that he was not coming to work the next day after being told he faced being “deported back to Pakistan” after making a “small mistake” and being reprimanded for “not working faster”.
Mr Saleem said there was no “altercation” that day and that he had simply asked Mr Ghani: “Why are the orders not going out?”.
He learned the following day that Mr Ghani was absent from the staff house owned by his younger sister, his codirector Aliha Saleem, he said.
Bank account
Mr Saleem said that before a bank account was opened in Mr Ghani’s name, he gave the worker cash “for the first couple of months” before bank transfers commenced.
Adjudication officer Breiffni O’Neill said there had been “no suggestion” during Mr Ghani’s direct evidence that the worker “gave any instruction to transfer money to that account” and “could not explain” how it got there.
“He said he was never made aware at any stage in the immediate aftermath of the account being opened of any card. The first he was made aware was when he got access to the bank account, thanks to the guards,” Mr O’Neill said.
Susan Jones, instructed by Jones Magee Solicitors, for the company, submitted that this had to be considered a “credibility issue” for the worker and said she had witnesses who could testify to Mr Ghani “operating his bank card”.
Mr Saleem said he was not aware of any allegation of money being “withheld” from Mr Ghani until after December 6th last, when there was a 6.30am “Garda raid” on his house in Greystones.
Mr Saleem said his wife explained to him afterwards that Mr Ghani left “all his documents” at the company house. These ended up at Mr Saleem’s home after Mr Ghani’s ex-colleagues tried and failed to return them – and left them with his wife “for safe keeping”, he said.
“I had zero knowledge of this arrangement,” he said.
On the working time claims, Mr Saleem said Mr Ghani “would work six days a week” but had time to take breaks and had access to the restaurant premises before work to cook his own meals.
Mr Ghani also claimed for pay in lieu for working public holidays, including Christmas Day and St Stephen’s Day in 2023. Mr Saleem’s evidence was: “We don’t open on 25th, 26th, 27th December.”
Mr O’Neill put it to him that he had signed off on a time sheet that recorded Mr Ghani working those days. “It might have been an oversight on my part,” Mr Saleem said.
Mr O’Neill then turned to the respondent’s barrister and said: “Ms Jones, you might need to reflect on your position overnight and talk to your counterpart in the morning.”
Mr O’Neill did not resume the public hearings when the parties met on Thursday at Lansdowne House in Dublin.
Migrant Rights Council of Ireland said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that matters had been “amicably resolved” following talks. The respondent’s legal team declined to comment.
The business, founded in Bray in 1999 by Mr Saleem’s parents, has four restaurants in north Co Wicklow and south Co Dublin, and is preparing to open its fifth in Sandymount at the end of the month.
