{"id":274746,"date":"2026-01-08T21:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T21:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/274746\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T21:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T21:04:07","slug":"hr-worker-admits-using-ai-assistance-to-write-legal-papers-for-her-employment-tribunal-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/274746\/","title":{"rendered":"HR worker admits using \u2018AI assistance\u2019 to write legal papers for her employment tribunal \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A human resources worker who \u201cswamped\u201d the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) with 15 weeks of \u201cupdates\u201d on her employment dispute for has been told to draw up new legal submissions for her employment tribunal claim after she admitted using \u201cAI<\/a> assistance\u201d to put her case together.<\/p>\n

At the Workplace Relations Commission on Thursday, her former employer\u2019s barrister said the claimant\u2019s legal papers referenced some real cases, but misquoted them \u2013 while he said he and his instructing solicitors had been unable to find others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems they may be hallucinations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The worker, Jadene Maclou, has alleged penalisation in breach of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 against her former employer, Virtuoso Learning Ltd, operator of an e-learning business called Kubicle.<\/p>\n

Representing herself at a remote hearing, Ms Maclou said that she was subject to a \u201cclear pattern of penalisation\u201d for speaking out about matters at the business, and argues these amounted to four distinct protected disclosures. She quit her job there last September, she said.<\/p>\n

At the opening of the case, Jason Murray BL, appearing for the employer instructed by Nathalie King of RDJ LLP, said Ms Maclou had filed one claim under the Protected Disclosures Act, and had then proceeded to make \u201c15 further submissions to the WRC and the respondent\u201d.<\/p>\n

There were also references to past rulings by the WRC in Ms Maclou\u2019s papers, he said. \u201cSome of those we simply can\u2019t find; it seems they may be hallucinations,\u201d he said. \u201cThe law is not quoted as per the cases,\u201d he said of other legal citations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve no issue with the tools being used, but there is an onus on a party presenting a case to make sure the cases actually exist,\u201d Mr Murray said.<\/p>\n

He asked adjudicator Penelope McGrath to direct the complainant to produce \u201ca concise statement, no more than five to seven pages\u201d summarising her position and the law she was relying on.<\/p>\n

The adjudicator asked: \u201cMs Maclou, have you been getting a bit of AI assistance putting your case together?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I\u2019m just one person,\u201d the complainant replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is, if you\u2019re trying to get case law to back up your point, the burden is on you,\u201d the adjudicator said. \u201cIt\u2019s not fair on the other side to send them off on a wild-goose chase for cases that don\u2019t exist,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

One disclosure was on \u201cequality and pay compliance\u201d when \u201cone person was paid paternity leave and one was not\u201d; while another related to a data protection matter, Ms Maclou said.<\/p>\n

She added that she had identified a third issue in relation to contractors being \u201cdisguised\u201d as employees. <\/p>\n

Mr Murray said he was \u201cnot on notice\u201d of these matters and it was \u201cnot appropriate\u201d to air them publicly.<\/p>\n

Ms Maclou said she wanted to press on with the matter on the basis that all her legal submissions except for one document filed in August 2025 could be set aside.<\/p>\n

Mr Murray said he had a concern that this too was \u201cAI-generated\u201d as he said it wrongly referenced a 2023 constructive dismissal case as a protected disclosure penalisation matter.<\/p>\n

Ms McGrath said the complainant had \u201calmost swamped the file with information\u201d by filing weekly \u201cupdates\u201d. Ms Maclou said she had been \u201ctold by the WRC to do so by phone\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re in a position to proceed today. With the greatest of respect, the file is a bit of a mess,\u201d Ms McGrath said.<\/p>\n

She told Ms Maclou she was to \u201ctake a look\u201d at her August 2025 submission and \u201cre-edit\u201d it.<\/p>\n

The adjudicator adjourned the matter until the end of February for the exchange of new legal submissions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A human resources worker who \u201cswamped\u201d the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) with 15 weeks of \u201cupdates\u201d on her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[289,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-274746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115861511739587307","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}