A former employee of popular Dublin ice cream parlour Spilt Milk, who said she quit after months of sexual harassment from a colleague a decade her senior, has secured €5,000 in compensation.
Leni Shanahan was awarded the compensation on foot of her complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998 against LN Ice Cream Ltd, the operator of the shop on Drury Street in Dublin 2.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) heard that Ms Shanahan was a 21-year-old student at Trinity College Dublin when she was among the first five workers hired for the opening of the shop in March 2024, under the joint branding of Spilt Milk and Roots Acai.
She told a hearing in May that, within a month of starting work together, an older colleague told her they had “sexual chemistry”, asked her out and remarked that he “thought that sex with me would be electric”.
Representing herself before the WRC, Ms Shanahan said she primarily had contact with Mr A, her alleged harasser, who was aged in his early 30s, when they were rostered to work together in the shop’s basement production kitchen, where there was no CCTV.
In the first week of April 2024, she said Mr A asked her to “go out with him for a drink” in the course of what she called a “very inappropriate conversation”.
The following week, Mr A “initiated a conversation about sexual experiences with her”. “He stated that we had sexual chemistry and he thought that sex with me would be electric,” Ms Shanahan said.
In late May of that year, Mr A “made comments about my physical appearance and commented on my white skin, my light eyes, my hair, my lips and my body, my weight and what I wore – and continued the conversation like that, after I expressed discomfort”, she said, before outlining a further series of interactions in the same vein.
On her last shift before leaving to take holidays in August 2024, she said Mr A gave her a hug and asked her when she was due back, before telling her: “I hope next time I see you, you won’t be here,” before winking at her.
The tribunal heard Ms Shanahan did not return to work as planned and resigned on September 10th that year before writing to her employer complaining of sexual harassment and then filing her WRC complaint.
Ms Shanahan said a key factor in her decision to quit and pursue a claim at the WRC was hearing that her alleged harasser had made a remark to her boss, health food entrepreneur Dave Meehan, about becoming “physically aroused” by her “flirting”.
She said she was told while she was away on leave that Mr Meehan had brought up the remark while talking to another employee, Mr B.
“As it was relayed to me, a comment was made [by Mr Meehan] about how [Mr A] would ‘get hard’ in conversations with me,” Ms Shanahan said, as she cross-examined her former employer.
Mr Meehan said in evidence that, since Ms Shanahan’s complaint, he had taken training in human resources. “It’s my first time having a shop in the city centre with such responsibility,” he said.
“I’d like to think for the most part I’ve led with love and care. I’ve made mistakes along the way like any other human being. Now I’m better equipped to deal with situations like this. That’s all I can say – again, I’ve apologised, and I really do mean it,” he said.
Ms Shanahan said she had “no idea” there was a complaints process for harassment, as she was “never shown” any policy document in that regard. She confirmed that she was not alleging sexual harassment on the part of Mr Meehan personally.
Steven Murphy, another company director, said Ms Shanahan declined to be interviewed for his internal investigation.
“It was a tough situation, something I’ve never done before. Leni said one thing, [Mr A] said the other,” he said. There was “no factual evidence we could find to uphold the complaint”, he said, and Mr A had “refuted” her allegations.
In his decision, adjudicator Pat Brady wrote that the business could not rely on the statutory defence of having taken “reasonable and practical steps” to prevent sexual harassment because there were “no measures of any sort” in place.
He wrote that Mr Murphy’s investigation finding that Ms Shanahan’s complaints did not meet the criteria of sexual harassment were “only true if no weight is attached to [her] statements… or less weight than is attached to an alleged perpetrator’s denial”.
Mr Brady said it was “unhelpful” that Ms Shanahan had declined to participate in the company probe and “difficult to understand” why she had not complained sooner.
“These factors provide no comfort to the respondent, whose liability is not diminished, but I propose to take them into account in making my award of compensation,” he added.
Upholding the claim, he awarded the worker €5,000.
