A Child Care worker in Galway has been awarded €20,000 because her employer discriminated against her by changing her working conditions and dismissing her because she was pregnant.
The award was made by the Equality Tribunal in a decision published today. The Tribunal rejected the complainant's claim that she was also dismissed on grounds of race.
The €20,000 award was made to Dagmara Ziablihka and against her employer Christine Connolly, trading as Small World Creche.
The Tribunal heard that Ms Ziablichka is a qualified child care worker who told her employer she was pregnant about four months after taking up her job in a crèche in Barna, Co Galway.
After a further four months, in May 2009, she was dismissed.
She told the Tribunal that after Ms Connolly learned she was pregnant, she wrongly accused her of dealing inappropriately with a child, suspended her and gave her a first and final written warning.
Read full decision by the Equality Tribunal
Ms Connolly submitted that a parent and her children had seen Ms Ziablicka speak loudly to two children and pull and push one of them into a pre-Montessori group.
The Tribunal accepted that Ms Ziablicka had breached procedures by shouting at or speaking loudly to one child. But it rejected Ms Connolly's allegation that her employee had pushed or pulled the child.
It found that the employer's sanction of a first and final written warning about the incident was disproportionate and not warranted in the circumstances and was more severe than sanctions imposed on other staff who had breached disciplinary rules and procedures.
He also found that when work rotas were assigned, Ms Ziablicka was treated less favourably than other staff who were not pregnant and that her concerns were disregarded.
The Tribunal found she had been dismissed in circumstances relating to her pregnancy, which amounted to discriminatory dismissal.
The award of €20,000 is more than half the €36,000 ceiling allowed by law for such discrimination.
