The former head of the United Nations’ migrant assistance bureau in Dublin was “reassigned because of her behaviour in Ireland” after more than a dozen staff complaints and resignations, a tribunal has been told.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) it is invoking diplomatic immunity in response to a claim for constructive dismissal by Charlene Maleady, a senior employee who quit in 2023.
Her lawyers have argued their client was knocked back so far in her career by retaliation and harassment from the IOM’s former chief of mission in Ireland, Lalini Veerassamy, that the UN agency cannot avail of immunity as an international organisation in the case under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.
Giving evidence on Tuesday, Ms Maleady told the WRC that she worked her way up the ranks after joining as an intern in 2011, securing promotion to her €67,000-a-year job as national protection and programme officer.
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In her statutory complaint to the tribunal, Ms Maleady wrote: “The chief of mission got reassigned because of her behaviour in Ireland because, at this stage, 13 complaints had gone in, and they sent over a new chief of mission.”
She said there was a “significant” increase in working hours when Ms Veerassamy took over in Dublin in 2019, citing WhatsApp messages about work matters as early as 7am and as late as 11pm and late-night work “becoming the norm”.
“You’d get messages Friday evening for what she wanted Saturday morning, and if you had a problem with it, she’d say: ‘It’s not how the international office would work. Staff were being put under pressure [and] being openly scolded,” she said.
She said that after she made contact with a UN HR office in November or December 2020, the HR department phoned Ms Veerassamy and “told her these issues had been flagged”.
“She called a meeting in January [2021], she said she knew who made them, they were unfounded, and she would address them within the mission,” Ms Maleady said.
Ms Maleady said she had just secured promotion to a local management grade as national protection and programme officer and that since her appointment had been cleared by headquarters, the mission chief had to give it to her. However, Ms Maleady said Ms Veerassamy called her in and said that her agreed duties in the post were being changed, she said.
She said that from that point onward she was “increasingly excluded from activities in the office” and was left with a single project to run.
Junior colleagues were “actively encouraged to report me for things”, “allowed to speak to me however they wanted” and would “reprimand me on calls”, she said. She said the “constant humiliation” only broke when Ms Veerassamy departed in May 2023.
She said UN human resources in Geneva spoke to Ms Veerassamy informally “to say she needed to pull back on her management style and be more cognisant of staff welfare”.
“In the meantime, I was linked in with the occupational health unit, who wrote a report on the Irish office. They’d serious concerns about what was going on ... they’d asked Geneva to step in and reel her in, effectively,” Ms Maleady said.
Ms Maleady said when she took maternity leave between autumn 2021 and summer 2022, she saw that her role as national protection officer was advertised by the organisation.
She found on her return that her desk – which she called “the best seat in the house” – her staff, and her work had all been reassigned, except for a single project she managed, she said.
“You work so hard, and then to go from being top of your career to being nobody, effectively. [Colleagues] got told to keep away from me: I was a troublemaker, I was a liar, I had an agenda, that I was racist,” Ms Maleady said.
She said she had hoped that when the new chief of mission in Ireland, Zuzana Vatralova, arrived in June 2023 that she would get back to where she was. Her evidence was that Ms Vatralova was clear that she would have to wait for new projects to come up and interview for them when they arose.
“I effectively was starting from scratch where I had to prove myself to a new chief of mission. I’d worked 11 years working my way up. I couldn’t start from scratch. I was rock bottom, I could barely string a sentence together, and my confidence was gone,” she said.
Ms Maleady said she had attempted to have her grievances addressed through various offices in the UN, including human resources, an internal ombudsperson, the UN ethics and conduct office, and eventually the Office of the Inspector General.
She said she ultimately resigned in September 2023 and secured a position in the Irish Civil Service.
The Office of the Inspector-General ultimately told her in April 2024 that it would not investigate her complaint of retaliation “because I hadn’t reported my grievance to my manager”.
Adjudication officer Kara Turner noted that the IOM had not attended the hearing but had written to the WRC making a “procedural immunity argument” based on a 2015 co-operation agreement between the State and the United Nations, which was covered by a statutory instrument.
Cillian McGovern BL, appearing for the complainant instructed by Crushell & Co Solicitors, said the agreement did not confer “absolute” immunity.
He said his client spent 11 years “building herself up” to a “dream job” in international relations, only to face “entirely retaliatory” behaviour from Ms Veerassamy and be reduced to a “lowly position ... photocopying and answering the door beside the fire escape”.
“That takes the complainant into the position where her work was not truly touching the business of a foreign government,” Mr McGovern said.
He said there had been “no accountability” when his client pursued the matter through the UN’s internal processes in the hope she might be reinstated.
Ms Turner said she would write to the parties with her decision “in due course”, and closed the hearing.
