Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Monsurat  Balogun

Royal College Of Physicians Of Ireland

Complainant

Respondent

Representatives

Jason Murray BL

Jennifer Cashman

Ronan Daly Jermyn Solicitors

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977

CA-00071299-001

05/05/2025

This hearing was conducted in person in the Workplace Relations Commission situate in Lansdowne Road, Dublin. In line with the Supreme Court decision in the constitutional case of Zalewski -v- An Adjudication Officer and the Workplace Relations Commission and Ireland and the Attorney General [2021] IESC 24 (delivered on the 6th of April 2021) the hearing was conducted in recognition of the fact that the proceedings constitute the administration of Justice. It was therefore open to members of the public to attend this hearing.

In line with the coming into effect of the Workplace Relations (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2021 on the 29th of July 2021, I can confirm that the witnesses herein were required to give their evidence on oath or affirmation. This was done in anticipation of the fact that there may have been a serious and direct conflict in evidence between the parties to the complaint. It is noted that the giving of false statement or evidence is an offence.

The specific details of the complaint are outlined in the Workplace Relations Complaint Form which was received by the WRC on the 5th of May 2025. In general terms, I will therefore be looking at a dismissal which will have occurred in the six-month period immediately preceding this date.

The Complainant was not represented and made her own case. When it came time to hear the Complainant’s evidence, the Complainant agreed to make an Affirmation to tell the truth. I was provided with a comprehensive submission dated the 13th of May 2026. This appears to have been AI generated and was of little assistance.

During the hearing I allowed the Complainant an opportunity to email through some documentation which she needed to support her claim of having mitigated her financial losses. No substantive objection was raised to any of these materials being relied upon by the Complainant in making her case though the ad hoc nature of their introduction was raised. The evidence adduced by the Complainant was challenged as appropriate by the Respondent’s Representative. The Complainant found this process hard.

The Complainant alleges she was Unfairly dismissed.

Where it also became necessary, I explained how the Adjudication process operated with particular emphasis on the burden of proof which had to be attained by the Complainant.  

Where I deemed it necessary, I made my own inquiries so as to better understand the facts of the case and in fulfilment of my duties as prescribed by Statute. 

The Respondent had full legal representation at this hearing. The Respondent was to be represented by a large number of witnesses who were not ultimately called upon to give evidence. The Respondent provided me with a written submissions dated 13th of March 2026.

The Respondent had defended the allegation of Unfair Dismissal herein until this matter was listed before the WRC on the 13th of May 2026. The Respondent conceded that the dismissal was unfair at the start of the hearing.

Where I deemed it necessary, I made my own inquiries so as to better understand the facts of the case and in fulfilment of my duties as prescribed by Statute.

At the outset the Respondent conceded the substantive issue and accepted that it had unfairly dismissed the Complainant on the 26th of March 2025. The Respondent was therefore asking that the hearing would proceed to hear any evidence that the Complainant might have concerning her financial loss only.

Where an employee has been dismissed and the dismissal is found to be unfair the employee shall be entitled to redress pursuant to Section 7 of the 1977 Act.

As previously noted, such redress might include re-instatement, re-engagement or compensation for any financial loss attributable to the dismissal where compensation for such loss does not exceed 104 weeks remuneration. The Complainant herein has only sought compensation. The Respondent herein has not offered re-engagement or re-instatement.

The acts, omissions and conduct of both parties will be taken into account when considering the extent of the financial loss and there is a positive onus on a Complainant to adopt measures to mitigate the financial/ remunerative loss (which includes actual loss as well as estimated prospective loss).

The evidence is that the Complainant was dismissed on foot of a disciplinary process wherein there were found to be serious performance failings on the part of the Complainant. The Complainant was paid a notice period of one month effectively meaning her employment terminated on the 25th of April 2025. The Complainant says that she was not able to appeal this final decision as she had effectively been cut off from accessing the internal system meaning it was impossible for her to mount a full appeal. I cannot know if this is correct or not, but the Respondent is quite right in pointing out that the Complainant had not exhausted the internal remedies open to her. The Complainant says that there was no communication between her and any one of her formal colleagues once the dismissal letter had issued. It is regrettable that the Complainant perceived she had no friends within the organisation. The Complainant’s annual salary was i8n the region of €36,500.00

I have been told that the Complainant had a work colleague who attended any investigation and disciplinary meetings conducted but I have no sense that there was anybody advocating for the Complainant in this stressful time.

As might be expected, the Complainant was shocked and upset to be dismissed in the fashion that she was, and it is particularly difficult in circumstances where after the passage of fourteen months the Respondent has come before the WRC conceding that the dismissal was unfair.

At no point before the hearing did the Respondent intimate it had conducted a flawed process or made a wrong finding. The Complainant has consequently nurtured a sense of grievance that was in no way ameliorated in the intervening fourteen-month period. The Respondent’s conduct has, I have been told, impacted the Complainant’s confidence to move on and acquire alternative employment.

As part of this stepping back from the brink, the Respondent has now put the Complainant into the unexpected position wherein she has had to pivot and consider only that period of time after the dismissal. I appreciate that the Complainant like many an aggrieved Employee is more likely to have dwelled upon the circumstances leading up to the dismissal and not the events thereafter. It is an unfortunate fact that the Complainant was simply not ready to deal with this part of her case in any meaningful way. However, having made her affirmation the Complainant was able to confirm through oral evidence that she had been making efforts to look for employment whilst on job seekers allowance. Indeed, the Complainant was thereafter in a position (in a break from the hearing) to email to Lansdowne House different job applications she had made in 2025 in the aftermath of the termination of her employment.

In circumstances where the Complainant was not obliged to make her case on the substantive issues, we had the time to go through this aspect of her claim in an unhurried way. Whether she knew it or not, the Complainant had, after her dismissal, been making good efforts to mitigate her losses as is required under the UD Acts.

In the end, the Complainant was able to provide the Respondent and me with up to nine applications for work which she applied for at the expiration of her notice period from the end of April to September 2025. There may have been other applications, but these were the ones to hand, and, on balance, I accept the Complainant was not in any way resting on her laurels. Much was made of whether or not the Complainant was right to assume that her Employer would not have given her a work reference if asked. It is true to say that she did not ask and in circumstances where she was dismissed for serious performance failures, I am not without sympathy for the Complainant’s predicament.

Having failed to get much, if any, response from the job applications she had made from June through September, the Complainant felt compelled to look again at a career she had had before being engaged by the Respondent. This was in the area of healthcare. In order to leverage her experience, the Complainant signed up to an adult education programme which would give her a QQI Level 5 qualification to work in any health care setting. As I understand it the Complainant can expect when this course is completed that she will be able to command a salary on a par with the one she had with the Respondent. The Complainant did also say that the flexible nature of agency work might suit her as she has a family.

The Complainant commenced the course in mid-September 2025 and will be graduating at the end of May 2026. In effect this was a quasi-fulltime education placement (there are up to 150 hours of unpaid work experience to be completed), and it left the Complainant unable to look for alternative employment in that period.

The Respondent has suggested that I consider the submission made by it and which reads:

 In addition to the aforesaid, It is noted that at the time of drafting, the Complainant has not supplied any evidence in support of her efforts to mitigate her loss. Therefore, the Respondent must take the position that the Complainant has simply not mitigated her loss, at all.

The Respondent reserves its right to rely on the following extract from Redmond on Dismissal Law:

In Sheehan v Continental Administration Co Ltd (UD858/1999) the EAT endorsed the position set out in the second edition of this work that

‘[a] claimant who finds himself out of work should employ a reasonable amount of time each weekday in seeking work ... The time that a claimant finds on his hands is not his own, unless he chooses it to be, but rather [is] to be profitably employed in seeking to mitigate his loss.’ 

This passage was recently adopted and applied by the Workplace Relations Commission in deeming a claimant to have made insufficient effort to mitigate his loss.

I am, of course, familiar with this case as it has been previously opened to me. There is no doubt that, in this case, the EAT placed emphasis on the need to keep on top of the task of looking for employment. There is no clear definition of what is meant by seeking work in this context though it has often been suggested to me that it means applying for jobs. I accept that this must be part of the expectation, but it should also mean making enquiries of friends or contacts and chasing up other leads. On balance, I accept that the concern of not having a job was front and centre in the Complainant’s thinking, even as she tried to also deal with her home life which had also been thrown into disarray by reason of her inability to pay for a minder. Whilst I accept worrying about a job is not the same as looking for a job, I am satisfied that the Complainant made some efforts to find work such that it would be wrong of me to entirely dismiss these efforts as negligible.

On balance I am satisfied that the Complainant has demonstrated that she has made positive efforts to find employment in the months between April and September at which time the Complainant went back into education on a full-time basis. For the record, I am of the view that in the circumstances of this case, the Complainant in returning to education is mitigating her losses. She is enhancing a skill she already had on the understanding that eventually she will be able to command a meaningful salary. Time taken out to clearly enhance her chances of employment is not some wasteful or frivolous exercise. The Complainant has made some difficult choices and should be commended for the decisions she has made.

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977

CA-00071299-001 – The Complainant was unfairly dismissed, and I compensate her for consequent financial losses in the amount of €14,500.00