The complainant was employed by the Prison Service from 1987 and was promoted to Assistant Chief Officer (ACO) in 2002. There had been an incident in 1996, after which he suffered depression, which was controlled by medication. However, he had a relapse after an incident on Christmas Eve 2007. After periods of sick leave, he claimed that the Service failed to provide reasonable accommodation, for example, by excusing him night shifts or allowing him to act as a floating ACO. He gave examples of situations in which reasonable accommodation had been made in the cases of other officers but none had been made in his case.

He also set out a series of incidents which he considered amounted to harassment by a number of Governors which he considered were related to his disability, as set out in section 14A (7) of the Acts.

The first issue considered by the Tribunal concerned time limits. Applying section 77(5) of the Acts, the Tribunal concluded that there had been a series of related events from Christmas Eve 2007 until April 2009. Since the claims were made in August and September 2009, they were in time. However, the complainant had also made a claim about his probationary period after promotion in 2002 up until 2005 and these claims were out of time.

On the issue of reasonable accommodation, under Section 16(3) of the Act, having determined that the complainant was disabled, the Tribunal concentrated on the Service’s refusal to excuse him night shifts. It followed the approach of the Labour Court in A Health and Fitness Club v A Worker (EED037). This included looking at the "factual position concerning the employee's capability including the degree of impairment arising from the disability and its likely duration. This would involve looking at the medical evidence available to the employer either from the employee's doctors or obtained independently." The Tribunal was satisfied that, after the complainant’s first request on night shifts was refused on operational grounds, the relevant officer did not consider a detailed medical certificate from the complainant’s GP, including a recommendation that he be excused night shifts.

The Tribunal concluded that the employer had failed to consider properly the complainant's request for reasonable accommodation, by ignoring the doctor's certificate and that this amounted to discriminatory treatment in relation to his disability.

It dismissed the complaints on harassment, concluding that, given the nature of the work, such incidents could be stressful but were “part of the job” and were not related to his disability.
He was awarded €10,000 in compensation for the discriminatory treatment suffered.

http://www.equalitytribunal.ie/Database-of-Decisions/2012/Employment-Equality-Decisions/DEC-E2012-125-Full-Case-Report.html