DCU reaches ‘agreement’ on resolution of discrimination claim

Dublin City University (DCU) has made an “agreement” to resolve a discrimination claim by a senior manager whose lawyers accused college authorities of “corporate gaslighting”.

Deirdre Wynter, head of marketing at the college, had told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) she had spent 19 years working her way up to her position only to have duties, responsibility and prestige stripped from her and given to a new director ten years her junior in a “surreptitious” departmental merger.

She said she had been told repeatedly that she was consulted on the merger at a meeting that she maintained never happened, with DCU finally agreeing with her only after she brought a formal grievance about it.

“I believe my client has been subjected to a type of corporate gaslighting,” said her barrister Tiernan Lowey, who appeared instructed by O’Mara Geraghty McCourt in the matter.

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Rosemary Mallon, appearing instructed by Kevin Langford of Arthur Cox for DCU, said the complainant’s case required the WRC to believe there was a “grand conspiracy” to discriminate at the college.

Ms Wynter said she would have applied for a marketing and communications directorship taken up by former IDA Ireland press officer Céline Crawford in August 2019 if it had been advertised publicly.

DCU had appointed nobody on the previous occasion the role was advertised – splitting the area across two separate departments for marketing and communications, one of which she ran, Ms Wynter said.

After Ms Wynter raised concerns about job ads referring to a combined marketing and communications department in summer 2021, Ms Crawford told her they had been merged at a meeting with deputy college president Prof Anne Synnott the previous December.

The college later admitted the meeting with Prof Synott never happened, the WRC was told.

Mr Lowey produced redacted May 2021 correspondence obtained from the college’s systems under a GDPR data subject access request stating: “It’s time to spell it out to Deirdre and marketing.”

Ms Wynter said she believed the correspondence was between Ms Crawford Prof Synnott, and showed the merger had been “surreptitious”.

Ms Wynter said she got the feeling she had been listened to when, at an internal grievance hearing,”, the college’s HR director looked her “straight in the eye” and said “I can’t defend the indefensible.”

However, while the formal grievance outcome included an apology for the failure to consult, it did not concede discrimination – and indicated that the complainant’s position in the college could still be subject to change.

“They had decided to cancel me” she said, calling it “career-ending”.

Ms Wynter said her position was further eroded when she was taken off an interview panel, after which she was persuaded by her GP to take medical leave over her stress levels.

The hearing was adjourned overnight on Tuesday and put back for around an hour and a half on Wednesday. The parties then met before adjudicator Penelope McGrath and said “agreement” had been reached to resolve the matter.

“Well done,” said Ms McGrath, giving six weeks’ liberty to re-enter the complaint.