A telecoms firm has been ordered to pay €55,000 to a former director of marketing who was made redundant when five months pregnant.
Workplace Relations Commission adjudication officer Michael McEntee found the complainant had been discriminated against.
She was one of 18 employees made redundant on November 14 last year in Ireland and the UK after the boss of the Irish unit was ordered to make €10million in cuts.
The marketing director had formally notified her employer on November 1 that she was pregnant.
The firm contested the discrimination claim and said the decision to make her redundant was made prior to formal notification of her pregnancy.
The chief executive added he was not aware of the pregnancy when the decision was made and it certainly had not been a factor in the redundancy.
However, the complainant contested this statement, arguing that while the formal notification was made on November 1 she was by this stage 20 weeks pregnant and clearly “showing”.
The chief executive said 18 employees across the UK and Ireland had been made redundant – 13 male and five female – and this gender mix more than rebutted any suggestion of discrimination on gender or pregnancy grounds.
However, Mr McEntee said: “The CEO was quite clearly under considerable pressure to keep the company afloat, but this is not an acceptable excuse in a pregnancy discrimination case.”
Mr McEntee added the fact the complainant was a highly paid employee at €94,000 per annum and the firm had a very good and expensive maternity leave scheme in place “could not in my view be completely ignored”.
He said: “She would have been a considerable overhead to be carried in a period of radical financial retrenchment.”
Mr McEntee ordered a payment of €50,000 for pregnancy discrimination and €5,000 for distress and upset.
