The Complainant commenced her employment with the Respondent, a telecom and electronic communications infrastructure support company, in October 2012.  She was given a number of internal promotions and became director of marketing in October 2015.

In 2017, the Complainant took maternity leave and returned to work in February 2018 – during this time she had been replaced by “Mr Xa”, who continued in his employment with the company after the Complainant returned from maternity leave.

On the 1st of November 2018, the Complainant notified the company that she was pregnant. Approximately two weeks afterwards she was made redundant. The Complainant submitted that she was given no notice or offered any consultation in regard to her redundancy and essentially, she had been replaced by Mr Xa.

The Complainant submitted that she had been discriminated against, contrary to the Employment Equality Act 1998 on gender/family status and pregnancy grounds in relation to her dismissal/redundancy.

The Respondent provided that during mid to late 2017 and especially during 2018 the trading position had deteriorated sharply. The industry that the Respondent company was trading in was undergoing significant flux and a number of re-organisations had to take place in the company to allow the Company to survive. Therefore, some forty-one Redundancies took place and several internal reorganisations were also necessary and the Complainant, in conjunction with other colleagues, was moved among Business Units in early 2018.

Considering whether the Complainant’s pregnancy was a determining discriminatory factor in her selection for redundancy, the Adjudication Officer informed the court that “the burden of proof shifted to the Respondent to prove that the alleged discriminatory dismissal/redundancy was not related in any way to the pregnancy”.

The Adjudication Officer highlighted that the Complainant had been given no warning of the decision to make her redundant and that no prior consultation or consideration of alternatives had been given.

In conclusion, the court found that the Respondent had not sufficiently established that there was no link to the Complainant’s Pregnancy in her inclusion on the redundancy exit list. The existence of considerable pressure to keep the Company afloat was not an acceptable excuse in a Pregnancy discrimination case. Accordingly, the Complainant was awarded €50,000 in Compensation for the Pregnancy Discrimination in regard to the Redundancy. In addition, the Complainant was awarded a sum of €5,000 for the distress and upset.
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2019/august/adj-00019756.html