An education support worker with a hormonal disorder who said a planned office move would leave her too far from hospital if she suffered a potentially fatal attack of the disease has won €33,500 for discrimination.
The order was made by the Workplace Relations Commission under the Employment Equality Act 1998.
It ruled that her employer knew she had a disability, but failed to carry out an assessment for accommodating her at work.
The identities of the parties to the case were not disclosed by the tribunal in a decision published today), with adjudicator Brian Dalton stating this was to keep the worker's "sensitive medical data" confidential.
The worker suffers from Addison's Disease, a rare chronic disorder of the adrenal glands causing fatigue, lethargy and muscle weakness.
But it also carries a "life-threatening risk" if she had an episode, her solicitor Barry Crushell told the WRC.
The worker told the tribunal that she learned in spring 2020 that her employer’s office in Blessington, Co Wicklow would be closing as part of a re-organisation.
She said she was told by a HR officer she could move to either Carlow, Naas, Co Kildare, or Tallaght in west Dublin.
She said she knew "immediately" that Carlow was unsuitable as there is no hospital in the town and sought an assurance that she could hot-desk from Naas, Co Kildare if she was transferred to Carlow.
None was given, even though she had stated that she told HR she "was not in good health" in May that year, the worker said.
In October 2020 the HR officer told the complainant she would be "assigned to Carlow" as she had failed to express her "preference".
The worker questioned the decision in an email of February 2021 writing that it: "did not suit either my personal or professional situation".
"As you know, I live in [a county] and my case load is in [there] and your decision to move me to another county will place unreasonable pressure on me," she wrote.
She ultimately resigned from the post into early retirement, the tribunal was told.
Denying discrimination, counsel for the employer, Catherine McVeigh BL, appearing instructed by Niamh Diskin of Eversheds Sutherland, said all reasonable steps were taken to accommodate the worker.
"During the correspondence from February 2020 to June 2021, over 16 months in total, the complainant at no point referred to the fact that she needed to be beside a hospital for an alleged disability," Ms Diskin said.
The option of using the office in Naas was "not viable" after nine months of correspondence on the matter as the space had already been offered to another worker, Ms Diskin added.
In his decision, Mr Dalton wrote that although there was no specific reference to the complainant's need to be near a hospital in the correspondence with HR about her job site, there was "a long exchange of email" about critical illness cover.
He found on the balance of probabilities that the worker’s reference to "personal circumstances" in her email of May 2020 was a reference to her illness.
"The employer knew that she had several medical conditions that were serious and had incapacitated her for significant periods of time. It could not be credibly argued that her personal circumstances were not known to her employer," he wrote.
The Carlow office might have been suitable, but the employer was required to carry out an assessment of where the worker could be reasonably accommodated so that she could continue to participate and advance in the employment.
"They had an obligation to make that assessment and did not," Mr Dalton wrote, ruling that the worker had been discriminated against on the grounds of disability.
He awarded €33,500 in compensation for the effects of discrimination, a sum equivalent to six months' salary for the worker.
