Penalties levied for discrimination

VILNIUS - Four Irish companies have been ordered to pay a total of 24,500 euros to former staff who they discriminated against because they were not Irish nationals, reports news agency LETA. The Irish Equality Tribunal issued four separate rulings on Jan. 18 involving three Lithuanians and one Latvian who were either unfairly dismissed or were not paid the same redundancy payments which their Irish colleagues received.

Two of the Lithuanians, Irmantas Stukonis and Vygandas Urbonavicius, worked with the Coalport Building company. Stukonis was dismissed by the company following a robbery at a building site where he worked as a security guard. He claims that he told his Lithuanian colleague at the firm that he was assaulted by two men during the robbery and was allowed go home. He did not speak English well and relied on his colleague to help him communicate at work.
At a subsequent meeting, the company’s officials demanded that he produce medical evidence to prove the assault and denied that it had allowed him to return home after the robbery took place. When he did not produce medical evidence he was dismissed.

The tribunal found that the firm did not make any credible effort to ensure the complainant understood the gravity of the allegations made against him. It did not provide an interpreter during the disciplinary meeting or have a disciplinary policy at the time. It also failed to investigate the circumstances of the robbery before dismissing Stukonis and three colleagues, who were all Lithuanians.

“I am satisfied on balance that this would not have happened to an Irish employee in similar circumstances, as that worker would have understood the allegations against him or her, and would have been able to articulate a defense to the charges,” said the tribunal.
It awarded Stukonis with 8,500 euros in compensation for his distress.

n a separate case the tribunal ordered Realtime Technologies to pay 2,500 euros compensation to Dmitrijs Monajenkovs, a Latvian national who did not receive any redundancy payments when he was dismissed from his job.
The company said it had not paid Irish staff redundancy payments but could not provide evidence of this to the tribunal, which said this was not credible given it appears “that they would have qualified for such payments.”

In another case the tribunal ordered Securazone Manhour to pay Lithuanian Utaras Eimas 3,000 euros for discrimination and 10,000 euros for discrimination dismissal. It found the firm discriminated against foreign nationals by refusing to allow them to rotate to the more dangerous night shifts – a perk enjoyed by Irish staff. It also dismissed all four foreign national staff when there was a downturn.