A man with cerebral palsy has been awarded £8,000 (€10,160) against a Co Wexford factory for failing to make allowances for his disability. Mr Mark Kehoe was employed as a general operative by Convertec Ltd in Wexford in October 2000. He said he had told the company of his disability at the interview, which the company denied. It said it first learned the nature of his disability when it received his claim form alleging discrimination.
Mr Kehoe claimed that the company expected a higher level of performance from him than it should have, having regard to his disability, when there were no set performance levels within the company. Mr Kehoe was represented in taking his case to the Office of Equality Investigations by his union, SIPTU.
The union said that just before Christmas, the company manager raised the issue of the complainant's disability with him, saying he was only working at half normal performances. Mr Kehoe said his hand got tired during the day and this affected his performance. He was approached by the company manager again in the new year and, on February 5th, was handed a letter of dismissal and told to finish the day.
The company denied discrimination and said that the only issue which arose was that Mr Kehoe's performance had deteriorated from when he first started work.
Evaluations of his efficiency at performing certain tasks showed that his efficiency levels varied between 54 per cent of optimum levels and 22 per cent. However, the equality officer found that the company had not asked Mr Kehoe to undergo a medical assessment, which could have established the impact of his disability on his performance.
The Office of Equality Investigations found that the company could have arranged for such special treatment or could have taken advantage of another provision of the Act allowing for a lower performance level at lower pay.
It found Convertec failed to examine the options available under the Act.