A south Dublin car dealership has told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) it dismissed a teenage saleswoman because she wasn’t hitting sales targets of 20 cars a month – and insists it had “no knowledge” that she was pregnant at the time.
Soraghan Auto Retail Ltd, trading as the Sandyford Motor Centre, has denied discriminating against former employee Abbie Walsh on gender grounds by sacking her on May 8th this year, around six weeks after she realised she was pregnant.
Ms Walsh’s lawyers have said the question of sales performance only emerged in response to their client’s complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998 – calling the firm’s contention that their client, at the age of 19, was expected to match the 60 sales a quarter made by her senior colleagues “unbelievable”.
“I don’t miss ... It would have been made clear to Abbie: ‘You’re not making the numbers’,” said car dealer Bruce Soraghan in evidence to the WRC on Thursday.
He said it was a “very hard role, cut-throat” that Ms Walsh had signed on for with the firm this January, and she simply “ran out of road”.
Cross-examining him, Ms Walsh’s barrister Seamus Collins, instructed by Daniel O’Connell of Keans Solicitors, said his client would say the feedback was “always positive”.
Mr Soraghan replied: “Maybe she’s confusing supportive with positive.”
“[Mr Soraghan] gave me the advice that I wouldn’t hit those targets in any way as a junior salesperson,” Ms Walsh said, adding that end-of-month meetings referred to by Mr Soraghan in April and March – when he said he had continued to raise performance issues – had not taken place.
Nothing was said to her about performance when she was called in without notice by a newly appointed sales manager in May this year, she said. This manager told her only that it wasn’t because she had been out sick or because of something she had done, Ms Walsh said.
She said the manager’s words were: “It’s just the way they feel ... they’re not a fan of the secrets.”
Her response was: “My immune system’s on the floor, the only secret’s that I’m pregnant.”
“He just shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘They want you out today’.”
Colin Walsh, industrial relations manager with the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI), said the requirement for a written statement setting out the reason for the dismissal of a pregnant employee did not apply as the company did not know Ms Walsh was pregnant.
Ms Walsh said she had informed her line manager on April 4th. The company argued the line manager left the following day and never passed any such information up the chain.
Adjudicator Eileen Campbell closed the hearing on Thursday afternoon and said she would issue her decision in writing in due course.
