A firm that was contracted to supply security staff at a Dublin facility providing accommodation for asylum seekers has been granted an injunction at the High Court to restrain another firm it hired from advertising or publicising a winding up petition taken against it.
In an ex parte motion on Tuesday, where only one side is represented, lawyers for Allpro Security Services Ireland Ltd were granted the motion by Mr Justice Mark Sanfey restraining Top Security Ltd from publishing the petition.
Tomás Keys BL, for Allpro, said the company was tasked with supplying security personnel at the site of the former Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum which was being used to provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.
Allpro’s client was the Department of Children, Disability, Integration and Youth Integration and the company was engaged by the department in June 2023.
Around the same time, Allpro engaged Top Security to provide security guards at the Dundrum site and agreed a rate of €21 per hour.
Allpro describes itself as a provider of security services to State agencies and private companies with around 1,000 employees and indirectly supports an additional 250 jobs in sectors such as catering, security, maintenance and landscaping.
Mr Keys told the court that Allpro had previously experienced difficulties with other separate sites relating to the number of staff present being less than requested.
The court heard that Allpro’s client, the department, had required verification as to the number of security personnel present and for how long.
In October 2023, the plaintiff introduced a clock-in and clock-out system to “ensure that there was an accurate record of how many personnel were on site at any one time” and if there was an adequate security presence.
The system was also to ensure accurate invoicing from third parties engaged by Allpro. Last January, an email was sent by the plaintiff advising Top Security that their personnel were not clocking in or out as they should be.
The email said that this led to a €5K discrepancy between what Allpro believed it owed Top Security and what the defendant had billed.
Top Security informed Allpro that it had its own “geofence” system that used GPS technology to see if staff are on site and for how long.
In his affidavit, Allpro company director Chris Moore saud that as the discrepancies continued he sent an email to Top Security that it was “imperative” the clocking be used and warned that a failure to align invoicing with the records “may result in payment delays”.
On January 5th, 2024, Allpro stopped paying Top Security over the clock-in system and in March received a message from Top Security saying €182,000 was due, which was later revised down to €154,000. Allpro says it paid over €123,000, a figure which was not in dispute.
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Allpro claims that the publication of the winding up petition would cause “unjustified reputational damage” to the company which he described as being “in a robust financial position”.
Mr Keys told the court the publication of the petition would be “very stressful” for employees with Christmas approaching and said that Allpro had a net profit of around €10 million in the last financial year and had paid €1.2 million in tax.
Court papers show that Allpro is claiming damages for “malicious abuse” of the court process over the issuing of the petition and for breach of duty and negligence in the “malicious presentation” of the winding up petition.
Mr Justice Sanfey granted the relief to Allpro and adjourned the matter, for mention, to Thursday.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
