A single mother of three dismissed from her administration job at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) has secured an admission that her dismissal was unfair after she was left out of work for more than a year.
Monsurat Balogun, a project co-ordinator, said that after her dismissal in March 2025, she was left “having to explain to my kids having to pull them out of their after school activities” because “I couldn’t afford it”.
Her complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the professional accreditation body for specialist doctors, was heard at the Workplace Relations Commission on Thursday.
Balogun was dismissed from the €36,000 job with one month’s notice on the stated basis of gross misconduct in March 2025, the tribunal heard.
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No details of what misconduct was alleged was disclosed at the hearing, which was confined to the issue of compensation after the institution’s barrister said it was “going to concede the unfairness of the dismissal”.
Balogun said she discovered she was dismissed when she had been “immediately cut off” from the company’s computer systems – only then discovering a termination letter had gone to her personal email address.
The worker was given a five day deadline to file an appeal of the dismissal to RCPI chief executive Audrey Houlihan, the tribunal heard. The complainant said she could not get the information she needed to pursue an internal appeal of the dismissal because of the system lockout.
“The minute I was dismissed, everyone cut me off. Nobody talked to me,” she said.
She said her focus switched to: “How am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to move on after this one month’s wages comes in.”
Adjudication officer Penelope McGrath said she had a general idea “there was a workplace problem, and the complainant was found wanting and [she] was dismissed, but the employer is now acknowledging that was an unfair dismissal.”
Balogun said she had applied for nine vacancies between July and September 2025 in various administrative customer support, and events management roles.
When she said she had difficulty finding work in the same field without a reference, Jason Murray, counsel for the respondent, put it to her she had not sought one from her ex-employer.
“I was unfairly dismissed. How do you think I feel going to the HR manager to ask for a reference? Who is going to give me the reference?” she said.
Balogun said she had completed training to return to her former career as a healthcare assistant and expected to find new work paying €25,000-€30,000 a year.
Murray said Balogun had “not complied with her obligations” under the Unfair Dismissals Act to make efforts to seek new work when holding a former employer liable. Any redress made by the WRC should be limited to four weeks’ pay in compensation, he submitted.
