Former employment tribunal worker claims unfair dismissal

A FORMER staff member of the Employment Appeals Tribunal was paid for 15 months, even though she did no work and ignored disciplinary proceedings, a tribunal hearing was told yesterday.

Frances Carew, Lansdowne Village, Sandymount, Dublin, is claiming unfair dismissal against the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation and the tribunal. Her employment with the department was ended in April 2009.

The tribunal was told yesterday that Ms Carew was transferred from it to the National Employment Rights Authority in 2007.

When she failed to turn up for work in that job, she was summoned to a disciplinary hearing, which she ignored. She was given verbal and a number of written warnings when she failed to turn up for work and several disciplinary hearings in 2007.

Speaking at the hearing of the Employment Appeals Tribunal yesterday, the departments personnel officer Maureen O’Sullivan said the situation had “gone on far too long” by the time she took up her post in September 2008.

When questioned by the tribunal chairwoman Niamh O’Carroll-Kelly as to why Ms Carew had been on the payroll for so long, Ms O’Sullivan said the department did not want to be “too harsh too soon” and only took her off the payroll when there was no other option.

No explanation had been given by Ms Carew for her absences from work or from meetings to discuss disciplinary proceedings, Ms O’Sullivan added.

Ms Carew was removed from the payroll in November 2008 and her employment was terminated in April 2009 after she failed to avail of a departmental appeals procedure or to contact the secretary general of the department to challenge her dismissal.

The tribunal was told that Ms Carew was a labour inspector who joined the department in 1973 and who was transferred to the Employment Appeals Tribunal in 2003 because it was short-staffed.

Ms O’Sullivan said Ms Carew’s timekeeping while working in the tribunal was erratic and she would frequently log in at 11am and log out 10 minutes later before returning in the afternoon.

Following mediation, it was agreed Ms Carew would return to the labour inspectorate if she reconciled absences through the flexitime system in the Civil Service.

Ms Carew did not do so, but the decision was taken to transfer her in 2007 in any case, Ms O’Sullivan said.

Ms Carew, who represented herself, said she had been one of the best labour inspectors in the department.

The hearing will resume on April 19th.