A Dublin school board has been ordered to pay an art teacher €35,000 after she was replaced with her maternity leave substitute – leading her to lose out on the right to a permanent contract and her family’s approval for a mortgage.
The Workplace Relations Commission has found “significant discrepancies” in how an interview by the Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board was conducted – and found that the school board could not “adequately explain” how competing candidates were scored in July 2020.
The tribunal heard that if the complainant had got the job for the new academic year, she would have gained the right to a contract of indefinite duration – her first in a decade of teaching.
In a decision just published, the WRC upheld Sarah Adam’s complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998 against the school board on the grounds of gender and family status.
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“[She] would have had an extended career in the respondent school. This did not come to fruition because of discrimination,” wrote the official who heard her case.
The school board had denied her claims.
The tribunal was told Ms Adam took six months’ maternity leave in December 2019, having joined the unidentified community college under the board’s patronage that September on a fixed-term contract.
After delivering twins in February 2020, she went to interview in July for a new fixed-term contract for the next academic year – but lost out to the substitute who covered her maternity leave, Ms Adam said.
The complainant said in her evidence that the day she handed over to her substitute, the school principal Bernadette McLaughlin said the interview would be “a mere formality” and that the job would be “kept open” for her.
Ms McLaughlin, who has since retired, denied this in her evidence to a hearing which took place in October 2021.
Ms Adam said she had found it difficult to secure a long-term contract as a teacher and that when the interview started with a question referring to her having “worked in a lot of schools”, she felt “undermined and belittled”.
She felt her presentation on using an online art museum tour was undermined by a “flippant” comment by one member of the interview panel about IT difficulties.
Her barrister, John Curran BL, said his client was quizzed by the panel on extra-curricular activities and continuing professional development with specific reference to “last year” – a period when she was on protected leave.
Ms Adam said in her evidence that she had hoped the principal would “jump in” in response to this – but said that Ms McLaughlin went on to question her about her involvement in the teaching leadership of the school “when she knew [she] could not get involved”.
The tribunal heard there was one other candidate for the job, Ms C, who was the teacher who subbed in the role for Ms Adam between December and the start of the schools lockdown.
Ms McLaughlin said in her evidence that Ms Adam was “deemed appointable”, but that Ms C “did better” at interview.
She denied Ms Adam’s description of the tone of interview and told the tribunal that she “never said that the role was guaranteed” to the complainant.
Ms Adam said a letter she sent in appealing her dismissal was “ignored” and that the board “rejected” her proposal of finding another position in its network.
She lost approval for a mortgage when her employment ended and went back to work as a substitute teacher and covering a maternity leave contract, she told the tribunal.
Mr Curran said his client would have gained the entitlement to a contract of indefinite duration if she had been reappointed for the new school year.
Her husband told the tribunal the dismissal had been “devastating” for his wife, who had worked “ten years of insecure roles”.
Adjudicating officer Kevin Baneham found that numerous aspects of the interview raised the inference of discrimination.
He wrote that the opening question on Ms Adam’s work history “put the complainant on the defensive from the off” and had “clear negative connotations”, Mr Baneham wrote.
The later focus on CPD and extra-curricular activities in the preceding year was “combative” and left Ms Adam “with the clear impression that the interview was not going well”, the adjudicator added.
He added that it was “manifestly irrational” of the interviewers to find that Ms Adam had “some but not enough” continuing professional development – as the complainant had “years of CPD” and had been on a more recent course than Ms C.
“I agree with the complainant’s assessment that in 2020, not everything she said was given the weight it deserved,” Mr Baneham wrote.
“[She] had greater qualifications and experience, and a full registration with the Teaching Council, while [Ms C] had lesser qualifications and experience, and a conditional registration. They are of the same gender and what differentiates them is the complainant’s pregnancy and maternity leave in 2020,” he wrote.
He found that Ms Adam had been discriminated against on the grounds of gender and family status, but rejected further claims of harassment and victimisation.
He ordered the school board to pay Ms Adam €35,000 in compensation for the discrimination.
Although he found it “striking” that there was no offer of other work to Ms Adam from the school board, Mr Baneham found there was too little evidence to suggest that this was linked to a later complaint she made about the interview.
He added that the questions posed at interview “were not questions that violated the complainant’s dignity”.
Mr Baneham issued separate decisions rejecting parallel claims against the school board under the Maternity Protection Act and a second Equal Status Act claim on the grounds of age.
The board is patron to 31 community colleges across Co Dublin and ten national schools, along with the school at Oberstown Youth Detention Centre.
The college at the centre of the employment equality claim was not identified.