Bernadette Treanor is the founder of Beo Solutions, an employee relations and engagement consultancy which provides best practice expert leadership and impartial organisational support in the areas of employee relations, employee engagement, workplace investigations, disciplinary hearings and mediation.
An expert in equality law, Bernadette provides Equality reviews and assessments, including assessments of cases being prepared. She is a Committee member of the Employment Law Association of Ireland (ELAI) and CIPD member. She reviews equality Decisions issued by the Equality Tribunal for Legal Island monthly and chairs its annual Equality Conference aimed at equality practitioners.
The complainant was employed for less than a year although the duration appears to be in dispute. She had an operation on her back and informed her employer that she was unable to return to work before Christmas 2011. The respondent presented evidence listing discontent with the complainant’s performance in terms of attendance and annual leave. There also appears to have been some confusion in the employer’s evidence as to whether or not the complainant informed them she wanted to resign. The complainant’s husband gave evidence that he went to the respondent premises for a haircut while the complainant was on sick leave and noticed a new person working there. He was told the complainant had left her position and had been replaced. He replied that she had not and refused to take her P45 but this was posted to the complainant subsequently. The Equality Officer accepted that the complainant suffered from a disability in terms of the Acts. He found the evidence of the respondent and his partner to be unreliable and concluded that they recruited a permanent replacement for the complainant even though they knew she was on sick leave. On that basis the Equality Officer found that the complainant’s dismissal was directly related to her disability and therefore discriminatory.
While the Equality Officer accepted that the flexibility of the replacement was a factor in his recruitment, he did not consider it a motivation in the complainant’s dismissal and her complaint of dismissal on the family status ground was not upheld.
The complainant was awarded €12,000 as compensation for her discriminatory dismissal on the disability ground.
Why is this case of interest?
- The treatment of the complainant was discriminatory on the disability ground and unrelated to any issue of reasonable accommodation. Many forget that the two issues can each stand-alone.
- It is a very obvious case of the assessment of credibility of a witness directly feeding into conclusions.
To read the full case law decision:
http://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/Cases/2014/July/DEC-E2014-049.html
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