One of the State's largest disability organisations discriminated against a disabled employee, who was given tasks she had difficulty in carrying out and was denied the use of a disabled parking space, the Labour Court has found. It has awarded €9,000 to the woman, who claimed that she was constructively dismissed by Enable Ireland (formerly Cerebral Palsy Ireland), in circumstances amounting to discrimination, due to her disability.
The woman's attempts to get her work changed caused tensions which led to her not being invited to a staff Christmas party. The Labour Court found that she was expected to undertake duties which included carrying a heavy bag of post: "She had difficulty in doing these duties. It was difficult to carry the bag, which was heavy, and she fell while delivering post, and had dropped letters on a number of occasions."
When the woman went to work for Enable Ireland at its headquarters in Sandymount, Dublin, she was allocated a parking space a short distance from her office.
"On completion of a new office building, she was not allowed to park in the designated disabled parking spaces, which were located outside her new office," the judgment states. "She was provided with a parking space 150 yards away. This arrangement was unsatisfactory, as the complainant found it difficult to walk the extra distance to her workplace. This caused her considerable distress."
The organisation said that the disabled parking spaces were for users of the services, not for employees. However, the Labour Court judgment stated: "This court cannot accept the contention that users of the services are permitted to use these spaces while a disabled employee is refused permission to do so."
The woman had been attem-pting to resolve her difficulty in dealing with mail from September 1999 to August 2000, when she contaced her union, IMPACT. She resigned in January 2001.
"The Labour Court is satisfied that car parking difficulties and the social isolation at Christmas were so upsetting for the complainant that, coupled with the difficulties experienced in attempting to have the matter of the internal post finally sorted, this represented the last straw for the complainant."
Enable Ireland was invited by The Irish Times to comment on the case, but had not done so by last night.