Covid-19<\/a> in September 2024 and suffered a secondary infection. By January 2025, she said, she was still sick with \u201cupper pulmonary infection\u201d which \u201cdid not clear\u201d, she said. <\/p>\nEventually, she had to take seven days off work sick with \u201cglandular fever, kidney infection, sinus illness and tonsillitis\u201d. She said her doctor had advised her that her immune system was \u201crun down due to Covid\u201d and \u201ccompletely depleted\u201d. <\/p>\n
In all, she said, she was out sick for five days in September 2024 and seven days in January 2025. <\/p>\n
Following certified absence from January 17th to 24th, 2025, the worker had annual leave and did not return to work until February 4th. <\/p>\n
After she attended a return-to-work meeting that day, her employer called her back to a second meeting and terminated her employment with one week\u2019s notice, she said. <\/p>\n
The company\u2019s position was that the worker\u2019s \u201cabsent rate\u201d was \u201cunacceptably high during her probation period\u201d. <\/p>\n
The complainant said she asked her bosses at the meeting to rethink the decision, arguing she had worked \u201cvery diligently\u201d and had taken on extra shifts when she was asked to during busy periods.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe complainant did not dispute her level of absence and, again, at no point did she maintain that her absence was due to the existence of an underlying condition or disability,\u201d the business\u2019s legal team said. <\/p>\n
The business argued further that the illnesses giving rise to the sick leave were \u201cmanifestly temporary in nature\u201d and that the worker had failed to establish the condition of her health amounted to a disability. <\/p>\n
The worker said she had \u201cvery little\u201d time off due to illness in her previous job, but that after contracting Covid-19, she suffered \u201cinfection after infection\u201d. Because of her heart condition, she had a \u201cweakened immune system\u201d, and needed longer to recover, she said. <\/p>\n
Adjudication officer Valerie Murtagh wrote in her decision that the worker was \u201ca credible witness and her evidence was cogent and convincing\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI find that the complainant raised the issue of her disability at the interview stage … she informed [the hiring manager] that she had a heart condition and had a stent inserted at age 16 and sometimes got infections as a result,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Ms Murtagh was satisfied the employer was on notice that the worker had a disability and had failed to provide reasonable accommodation to her. <\/p>\n
She found further that the worker was \u201cdiscriminatorily dismissed\u201d due to her disability. <\/p>\n
The employer was directed to pay \u20ac6,500 in compensation and to review its procedures and training to ensure compliance with equality law. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A shop worker with a weakened immune system who was dismissed for being off sick for 12 days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,64,18,19,17,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-292983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-covid-19","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115924356235104622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292983","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=292983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}