Crime & Law

GRA ordered to appoint woman to head office role

Tara McManus had claimed she was victim of gender-based discrimination

The Workplace Relations Commission was told there was an ‘old boys club’ among the leadership of the Garda Representative Association. Photograph: Alan Betson

Stephen Bourke
Thu Oct 20 2022 - 13:20

The Garda Representative Association (GRA) has been ordered to appoint a woman to a head office role after its central committee failed repeatedly to ratify her candidacy.

Tara McManus had claimed she was the victim of gender-based discrimination by what her barrister suggested was an ‘old boys club’ among the leadership of the GRA.

The Workplace Relations Commission has rejected the discrimination claims, but upheld a finding of victimisation under the Equal Status Acts after seeing minutes where a member of the GRA’s central executive committee said: “I voted on the sole reason [that] she’s suing the association… and you can tell her that.”

The tribunal was told Ms McManus was chosen as the most suitable candidate but before she could take up the role, her selection would have to be ratified by a two-thirds majority of the association’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) and then further ratified by delegates at its annual conference.

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A secret ballot on February 13th, 2020 went 22-19 in favour of Ms McManus being appointed, short of the majority required.

Kiwana Ennis BL, who appeared for Ms McManus instructed by solicitor Áine Breathnach of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, said it was notable that the president and chair of the CEC had both “unsuccessfully applied” for the job.

“Nobody present made a declaration of conflict of interest,” Ms Ennis said. Her client was told by phone that she had been “unsuccessful”, she said.

A meeting of the CEC the following month elected a male member of the committee to fill the role on an interim basis, Ms Ennis said.

In a July 2020 letter to the GRA’s general secretary, a member of the interview board expressed “extreme anger and frustration” over the ratification process at the CEC, the tribunal heard. They urged future votes at the CEC to be “open and transparent”.

The complainant lodged her first complaint with the Workplace Relations Commission in July 2020, alleging gender-based discrimination.

A second recruitment competition for the assistant to the general secretary role was held in October 2021 and again she applied.

Once again, Ms Ennis said, Ms McManus was selected unanimously by the interview panel and sent to the CEC for ratification.

The fact that her client had lodged a discrimination claim with the WRC was raised at the meeting and referred to by certain committee members, despite the interim general secretary being required to “explain the definition of victimisation” at its meeting of November 11th, 2021 Ms Ennis said.

This vote went 22-13 in favour of Ms Ennis, a majority of 62.8 per cent, short of the 66.6 per cent she needed – but was taken again on November 23rd on foot of legal advice, as there had been a rule change requiring an open vote, Ms Ennis told the tribunal.

The minutes, submitted in evidence by Ms Ennis, record objections from some members of the committee on holding the vote again and further discussion of Ms McManus’s live discrimination complaint before the WRC.

The minutes recorded one member as stating: “This is a shitshow. We have to move forward. This vote will bury this association. I voted on the sole reason [that] she’s suing the association… and you can tell her that.”

Ms McManus’s candidacy was supported 23-16 – 56 per cent of the vote – with two abstentions.

Ms Ennis pointed out that the two members of the CEC who had unsuccessfully applied for the role in the first competition voted against Ms McManus, as did a member of the interview board which proposed her. Being denied the “significant promotion” had been a “profound source of disappointment and distress for her client, counsel added.

Ms McManus lodged a second complaint in December that year, again alleging discrimination but this time making a further allegation that she had been victimised for taking her first complaint.

Ms Ennis also presented a 2017 report which raised issues with the leadership of the GRA – and describing it as an “old boys’ club’ or a ‘closed shop’. The report referred to national roles being “shared around” or “shared out among the ‘top table’”.

“Talent was observed as less important than loyalty to those in power, or time-serving, in the breaking into the upper echelons of the association,” the report added.

It also noted that there was a 30 to 1 ratio of males to females on the CEC compared with 27 per cent female membership of the representative association.

“The fact that no female garda has been appointed to a leadership role in the CEC as either an officer or a member of association staff is very revealing of a systemic gender issue,” Ms Ennis argued.

James Kane BL, who appeared for the GRA on the instructions of Elizabeth Hughes Hughes Murphy, said there was no dispute on the facts of the matter, but argued that they were “utterly inconsistent with a claim for discrimination”.

He argued that the interview boards, which he said included CEC members, proposed Ms McManus repeatedly ahead of male applicants.

Mr Kane added that the committee had also given Ms McManus simple majority support every time it voted.

He said the GRA was bound by the rules of the selection and appointment process and that by failing to achieve two-thirds support was the only reason she was unable to progress.

He added that the rule “applies irrespective of gender” and had “yielded negative results for male candidates and male office holders” in the past.

He argued that Ms McManus had failed to make out a prima facie case of discrimination and said she could not have been victimised by the November 23rd vote.

This, Mr Kane argued, was “more favourable” to the complainant as her support in the CEC “grew” from 54 per cent to 59 per cent of the votes cast.

In his decision, adjudicating officer Jim Dolan wrote that Ms McManus had not identified any person as a comparison to show she had been treated less favourably.

“One cannot conclude that the CEC voted as it did due to the complainant’s gender. It is for this reason that I must now decide that the complainant as presented is not well founded,” he wrote.

However, he said the victimisation aspect had to be considered as a standalone matter – and found that Ms McManus “was victimised prior to the ratification process by at least one member of the CEC”.

Mr Dolan awarded no financial compensation, but ordered the GRA to appoint Ms McManus to the position of assistant to the general secretary within six weeks of October 5th this year.

He said the appointment should be supernumerary if there was no vacancy. “I order the general secretary, on behalf of the entire CEC, to provide an assurance to the complainant that there will be no negativity shown to the [her] complainant on her appointment,” he concluded.

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