WRC hears Marker Hotel worker’s claim of ‘invasive’ questions about origin and sexuality – The Irish Times

A hospitality worker said he was repeatedly asked invasive questions about his sexuality and country of origin by his manager amid a “toxic” working environment at the five-star Marker Hotel in Dublin.

The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) heard the worker, Erick Roa, began “covertly” recording members of management at the landmark Docklands hotel in 2024 “so that I’d have evidence”.

He said he quit his €13.90-an-hour job as a reservations agent in February 2025 because he believed his employer would not address his complaints about the alleged behaviour of his manager.

A barrister acting for the NH Hotel Group, trading as Anantara the Marker Dublin Hotel, says it is “demonstrably untrue” that Mr Roa was discriminated against and bullied for his sexual orientation.

Mr Roa, who represented himself at a hearing on Wednesday, told the WRC he was a dual citizen of Costa Rica and Guatemala living in Ireland under a visa linked to his partner, and identified as gay.

He said that when he went for a job interview in March 2024 the manager, Matt Sherlock, who oversaw reservations, “asked me how I got my visa”. “He asked if I got it for going to school – I said I got it for my partner. He asked if my partner was female or male,” the Mr Roa said.

“I didn’t know where to go, because you don’t ask these things. I answered: ‘He is a male,’” Mr Roa said.

When he started work, a supervisor in the reservations office was “making fun of my accent and making fun of my English”, he said. He said he spoke to a training manager in the company’s HR office about this in his third week on the job.

“Basically, since I complained, the environment of that office wasn’t friendly, wasn’t good,” he said.

Mr Roa said due to staffing pressure he wasn’t finishing work as scheduled at 5.30pm and that Mr Sherlock was “getting upset” when he tried to leave on time.

On one occasion in mid-June 2024, Mr Roa said he told Mr Sherlock he had to leave as his partner was waiting for him.

“Is your partner she, or he?” came Mr Sherlock’s reply, the complainant said. He said this was “really inappropriate, because that was definitely none of his business”.

The tribunal heard Mr Roa’s initial three-month probation period was extended, but that he passed probation at the end of July 2024.

He gave evidence that he was due to celebrate his birthday around the end of that month and that Mr Sherlock asked about his plans in the context of arranging for time off.

“I said I’d go somewhere with my partner,” Mr Roa said. He said Mr Sherlock again asked “whether my partner was a he or a she”.

Mr Roa said when he learned a new HR manager was in place at the hotel and he went again to the HR office on 30 August 2024 because Mr Sherlock was asking “really invasive” questions about why he left Guatemala and came to Ireland.

He said he told the new HR manager, Grace Moore “that [Mr Sherlock] was asking about my partner, whether my partner ‘was a he or a she’” and he did not feel comfortable answering the questions.

“She said she was going to get back to me and she never did,” Mr Roa said. He said Ms Moore later said that he “never went to her office”. The hotel’s legal team said Ms Moore had “no record” of the 30 August conversation, but that it was conceded that Mr Roa made an “oral complaint” that day.

The tribunal heard that Mr Roa started making what counsel for the respondent Dan Fennelly BL termed “covert recordings” in the workplace.

Mr Roa said he “did record” that meeting and could “send the evidence I have so we can see that she’s lying”.

Mr Roa invoked a formal grievance on 11 September 2024. Mr Fennelly said Ms Moore investigated the grievance and “didn’t uphold a single one of the complaints” made by Mr Roa.

The tribunal heard that Mr Roa did not appeal the findings at that point. Later, in January 2025, he approached the hotel’s general manager, Ludo De Jong, complaining that Mr Sherlock had been “aggressive” towards him.

After further correspondence, Mr De Jong transferred Mr Roa to another office, the tribunal was told.

The complainant invoked the company grievance process a second time, complaining about “insults and verbal attacks” from Mr Sherlock, but resigned in February 2025, before the grievance outcome came rejecting the complaint.

Adjudicator Penelope McGrath has adjourned the matter and said she would look for a resumed hearing date in March, when Mr Fennelly could continue to cross-examine the complainant.