Can we offer a disabled employee lower paid work if deemed unfit to fulfil their role?
Published on: 16/01/2017
Article Authors The main content of this article was provided by the following authors.
Patricia Rooney Partner and Head of the Employment Team, Tughans LLP
Patricia Rooney Partner and Head of the Employment Team, Tughans LLP
Patricia Rooney 2026

Patricia is Partner and Head of the Employment team at Tughans.


Patricia is a senior lawyer with extensive experience in dealing with both contentious and non-contentious employment matters. Patricia specialises in TUPE/outsourcing matters and regularly advises administrators on redundancy, “pre-pack” administrations and their TUPE obligations.


Patricia is qualified in NI and ROI and works regularly with clients with an all-Ireland presence. She is also qualified in England & Wales. She has appeared in the Industrial Court on union recognition matters, in the Industrial & Fair Employment Tribunal, before the NI Court of Appeal, and before the WRC and Labour Court in Ireland and the Employment Tribunal.


Patricia is very highly regarded, with a broad range of clients across all sectors, advising on all aspects of employment law, from recruitment to dismissal. She has extensive experience in transactional work, working closely with her corporate colleagues and has broad experience in advising on mergers and acquisitions and TUPE/Service Provision Change.


Patricia regularly speaks on employment law and developments, presenting the Employment team’s breakfast briefings. She also lectures in the UU/Legal Island Post-Graduate Diploma in Employment Law and has provided tailored training and seminars on various topics and regularly writes articles, including monthly articles for an all-Ireland human resource training provider.
She is a member of the Council of the CBI in Northern Ireland as well as a member of the Employment Lawyers Group (NI).


Patricia’s clients include non-departmental public sector bodies and employers throughout the UK.

We have an employee who has a disability and have had him assessed by Occupational Health in relation to his ability to continue to carry out his role and responsibilities. Occupational Health has confirmed he is not fit to carry out those duties.  We do, however, have alternative work he could do but that role attracts a lesser salary.  Can we employ him in this alternative role on the terms and conditions and salary that that role attracts? 

It appears from your query that the Company has recognised that your employee suffers from a disability and is, therefore, a disabled person within that meaning under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (“the DDA”).  It is good that you have had

Continue reading

We help hundreds of people like you understand how the latest changes in employment law impact your business.

Already a subscriber?

Please log in to view the full article.

What you'll get:

  • Help understand the ramifications of each important case from NI, GB and Europe
  • Ensure your organisation's policies and procedures are fully compliant with NI law
  • 24/7 access to all the content in the Legal Island Vault for research case law and HR issues
  • Receive free preliminary advice on workplace issues from the employment team

Already a subscriber? Log in now or start a free trial

Disclaimer The information in this article is provided as part of Legal Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article. This article is correct at 16/01/2017