A crèche which decided it was "not prepared to take responsibility" for a two-year-old girl after she was diagnosed with a severe nut allergy has been ordered to pay her €3,000 in compensation for disability discrimination.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has directed the unidentified childcare facility to pay the sum on foot of a complaint under the Equal Status Act 2000 in an anonymised decision published today.
The crèche, which the girl had attended since she was 18 months old in August 2022, had been aware the girl had some other food sensitivities and had arrangements in place, the tribunal was told.
Her parents said she was "happy" there.
They said that their daughter took ill on Saturday 10 February 2024, after eating a cookie at home, and was seen by their doctor – who decided she was not in danger and that her breathing was "fine".
She was referred to hospital according to protocol and developed a rash, but was discharged a few hours later, they said.
On 15 February that year, a consultant food allergist diagnosed the girl with an allergy to peanuts, pistachios and cashews, the parents said. This meant that their daughter was required to carry two Epi-Pens, adrenaline auto-injector devices, as a "precaution", it was submitted.
When the girl's father returned to the crèche on Monday 19 February, he explained the situation with the Epi-Pens to a worker and met with one of the crèche’s owners.
"The owner said under no circumstances would any Epi-Pens be allowed in the crèche, and the [girl] would have to leave," the parents told the WRC.
Although the owner had stated she would give the parents a week or two to move the girl, she refused to take charge of the Epi-Pens for this period, the parents said.
They said they were forced to remove her immediately as a result.
Solicitor Mary Geary of McMahon O’Brien Tynan, for the crèche, told the WRC in a legal submission that the creche’s owners "were not prepared to take responsibility" for the girl in view of the severity of her nut allergy.
She said there had been no prior notice to the crèche from the family that the girl was coming back with a new medical condition.
One of the crèche’s owners, who was not named in the decision, told a hearing in January this year that she was concerned that because the girl was so young "one of the other children could give her a product with nuts".
The management denied discrimination and said they were only concerned for the health of the girl.
Adjudicator Davnet O’Driscoll wrote in her decision that she accepted the crèche management’s concern was genuine.
Her view was that the girl’s parents should have briefed the management on the new diagnosis before bringing her back to the crèche to give it time to consider the situation.
However, she wrote that rather than refusing to accept the Epi-Pens on the day and telling the parents the crèche was not "suitable" for the girl, there ought to have been "consultation and discussion" about the situation.
The medical information should have been considered, along with training requirements and any question of the parents indemnifying the crèche, she wrote.
"The complainant was moved from her crèche and minders where she was happy," she wrote.
She noted that the girl’s parents were left without childcare and had to take time off work, and that their daughter’s new childcare provider was further away from their home.
Ms O’Driscoll added that the crèche’s argument that it "could not have kept the complainant safe" was not supported by the evidence before her.
She concluded that the crèche discriminated against the girl and failed to reasonably accommodate her disability.
"I award [her] €3,000 compensation for her upset and the effects of discrimination," she wrote.
She anonymised her decision on the basis that the complainant is a minor.
