AN EXECUTIVE at CIÉ, who was banished to a damp basement office, denied promotion and victimised by the firm, has been awarded €189,000 in compensation by the Equality Tribunal.
The tribunal ruled yesterday CIÉ discriminated against Monica Murphy, who has worked for CIÉ since 1971, on the basis of her gender by not providing her with promotional opportunities. It also found the State company victimised her by accessing her work e-mail, excluding her from social events and refusing to sign off on expenses and leave requests.
“Ms Murphy has submitted that she has felt distressed, undervalued and intimidated with what has occurred since 2003 . . . and I can understand how this would be the case,” said equality officer Orlaith Mannion in a ruling.
In evidence to the tribunal, Ms Murphy said she was unfairly passed over for promotion within the marketing department after returning from a career break and given a “dummy job” located in a basement office with rising damp.
She said her immediate supervisor persuaded her not to apply for three marketing manager jobs advertised in 2003 on the basis that he would create a new role for her in the firm. She said three men were appointed to the positions and she realised she was “sold a pup” when she was allocated no budget or staff in her new role.
She was subsequently excluded from team meetings and received no increase in remuneration or any of the performance bonuses that she was promised when her new role was discussed.
Ms Murphy said she felt demoralised when one of her colleagues told her her new role was a position where people were put before they retired. At a later meeting, her supervisor asked her if she was thinking of retiring. She was also asked what her husband did for a living. She told the tribunal a man would not be asked this question.
At a later meeting her supervisor told her she was “highly qualified, highly experienced”, could get a job easily outside CIÉ and wanted to offer her an exit package.
When she rejected this offer, her supervisor turned “nasty”, according to Ms Murphy, telling her she may not be as good as she thinks. He later cancelled payments made by CIÉ to cover her subscription to various professional bodies, which were standard payments enjoyed by other executive staff. He also refused to sign off on expenses claims and annual leave requests.
Ms Murphy submitted a confidential complaint to the chief executive of CIÉ. She was shocked to discover he referred her to her supervisor. When she finally submitted a formal bullying complaint against her supervisor, he responded in an “unnecessarily aggressive” manner, according to the tribunal.
CIÉ rejected all allegations of discrimination made against the company in its evidence to the tribunal. It said 50 of its highest 426 paid executives were women. It said it did not damp proof Ms Murphy’s office in 2007 due to the prohibitive costs involved. This has subsequently been done.
Ms Murphy’s supervisor told the tribunal he only mentioned the offer of redundancy and it was not forced. He said he accessed her e-mails on an once-off basis to check her non-attendance at work.
The tribunal accepted Ms Murphy’s evidence and noted in its judgment that CIÉ had not fully co-operated by withholding information from its investigators.
It awarded Ms Murphy €126,000 – the equivalent of two years’ salary – for discrimination in relation to her conditions of employment and access to promotion. It awarded her €63,000 to compensate for the distress caused by the victimisation.