The complainant was one of three people employed in finance roles with the respondent.  She had qualified with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.  Her two colleagues were male.  The complainant gave evidence that she always performed well in her role and got excellent appraisals.  The respondent, faced with restructuring in 2010, announced that the three posts were at risk and two new posts were being created.  One of the new roles attracted a salary of €45,000 focusing on balance sheet and the second attracted a salary of €55,000 focusing on profit and loss.  One of the three expressed no interest in the new posts and was made redundant.  The other, a part qualified male who was unmarried, had no children, had not completed his training and apparently had failed one or more of his ACCA exams, expressed an interest in the second new post as did the complainant who was fully qualified.  The part-qualified male colleague was successful while the complainant was unsuccessful in the interviews even though she was more qualified and had many more years experience in the Consulting Engineering sector than the successful male appointee.  She was made redundant in August 2010.

Others issues that arose in the case included the complainant’s line manager having previously asked the complainant how many children she had.  He also allegedly yawned and looked out the window during the complainant’s interview for the new role.  In addition, the complainant indicated that some answers recorded in the notes of the interview were not answers that she had provided or were low-level examples when she had also given high-level examples.  In particular, one response attributed to her related to depreciation and the complainant was adamant that she did not refer to depreciation at all during her interview while that would have been an area of work relevant to the successful candidate.

The Equality Officer referred to Wallace v South Eastern Education from the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal, NI 38[1980] IRLR 193 as authority for “the proposition that where a successful candidate for appointment to a post is a man and the unsuccessful but better qualified candidate is a woman, that fact alone is sufficient to establish a prima facie case of discrimination”.  The Equality Officer found that the complainant was a very cogent and credible witness.  She found that the complainant had established a prima facie case in respect of all three grounds referred, gender, marital status and family status which the respondent had failed to rebut.

She was awarded €45,000 as compensation which equates to approximately one year’s salary. 

Why is this case of interest?

The respondent had gone into liquidation in August 2012 and its evidence was in the form of a written submission to the Tribunal in early August 2011.