A former National Ambulance Service (NAS) paramedic has claimed she was victimised and felt forced to resign from her job after alleging she had been “groped” by a male colleague.
Rebecca Rigney said a supervisor who found her crying in a toilet after the alleged incident told her not to report what had happened, as her career would be ruined.
She said that when she complained, she was harassed and, she said, a witness she intended to call was asked by the subject of her allegation to provide him with a character reference.
She has told the Workplace Relations Commission she was denied access to witness statements and important documents and after 2½ years without a resolution, she felt compelled to resign.
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The Health Service Executive (HSE) denied the claim and said she failed to provide a prima facie case for her former employer to answer.
They accepted that investigations were delayed by the HSE’s response to the Covid pandemic but said there was no evidence of discrimination or victimisation.
The tribunal also heard that following an internal investigation, the HSE rejected Rigney’s groping allegation three years after her initial complaint and six months after she had resigned.
It also heard that the supervisor who Rigney alleged had told her not to report the allegation denied that any such conversation had taken place.
Rigney has made three complaints against the HSE under section 77 of the Employment Equality Act 1998 alleging victimisation, discrimination and constructive discriminatory dismissal.
Rigney, represented by Nicola Coleman of Siptu’s Workers’ Rights Centre, told the WRC that in 2019, while she was an intern with the NAS, she was groped by an older, more senior male colleague.
She said she did not immediately lodge a complaint because of the warning given to her by a supervisor but began a formal complaint procedure in January 2022. The following month, she said, the NAS was instructed to investigate her allegation as a potential case of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment.
She said she was initially offered mediation but was “quite horrified they would even suggest mediation for this level of complaint”.
Over the following year, she said, she asked her HR department for updates on the investigation but received little response.
By July 2024, she said, she was “stressed out” and was signed off work for one month by her GP. She said she decided then that she could no longer work for the HSE and handed in her notice in August.
She discovered six months later that the investigation had rejected her complaint of sexual harassment.
Coleman told the tribunal the HSE had failed to protect a young woman who had reported serious wrongdoing. She said their failure to act promptly meant the process itself became the harm as the investigation dragged on.
She said it was “not an isolated case” and that others in the ambulance service had reported similar issues. In particular, she relied on the evidence of paramedic Debbie McCole, who told the tribunal she had made a complaint under the dignity at work policy in February 2022. She said the investigation did not begin for more than two years and she found the delay and lack of communication to be “stressful and frustrating”.
Solicitor Loughlin Deegan, for the HSE, said the groping allegation related to an incident in 2019, whereas the WRC can only consider allegations brought to it within six months.
He said the subject of the groping allegation contacted 20 people asking them to act as character references and there was no suggestion he knew one of those was to be a witness on behalf of Rigney.
He said the delay was due to a “Covid hangover” and the fact the investigator had been given a list of 30 witnesses to interview. Deegan said there was no case for the HSE to answer.
Stokes said he would deliver his judgment at a later date.
