Co Donegal<\/a>, where she was a substitute teacher up to the end of the school term in 2022.<\/p>\nBarrister Patricia McCallum, instructed by Donough Cleary of Cleary & Co Solicitors for Ms Cleary, told the tribunal her client was treated differently when she tried to secure a new contract for the new term \u2013 arguing this was \u201ceither because of her age, gender or religion\u201d.<\/p>\n
The school wholly denied discrimination on any basis, and the WRC ruled neither age nor religion were at the root of the treatment, only gender.<\/p>\n
Ms Cleary told the WRC she had been subjected to remarks from her colleagues alluding to the fact that her husband was a Protestant and her children attended a Church of Ireland school.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was said to me by [two colleagues] together, joking, that: \u2018Mrs Wilkin you\u2019d be better served up in Trentagh selling tray bakes\u2019,\u201d she said, in reference to a nearby school under the Church of Ireland\u2019s patronage.<\/p>\n
Ms Cleary said Kilmacrennan\u2019s former principal, John Devenney, told her on June 10th, 2022, that he was appointing a colleague of the complainant to one of two vacancies, but would not fill the other post until July or August that year. <\/p>\n
She said another substitute teacher at the school \u2013 Mr B \u2013 told her the same day that he had been \u201cgiven fifth class\u201d for the coming academic term. She said it was her belief that Mr B was reappointed without interview.<\/p>\n
After she raised the matter with the chairman of the school board, local priest Fr Paddy Dunne, the complainant said the principal told her at a further meeting on June 14th, 2022: \u201cListen, you may take it that your last day at school is Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that when she spoke again with Fr Dunne that evening, he said: \u201cYou\u2019ve been talking to the staff and the union, haven\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, yes, they are my friends and I thought it was my right to speak to my union to get advice about this. He then went, in a raised voice: \u2018Aoife, you\u2019ve jumped the gun. You can\u2019t force John\u2019s hand.\u2019 I think he meant that I should be quiet and not ask questions … I was so shocked I was crying on the phone,\u201d Ms Cleary said.<\/p>\n
On the last day of term, Ms Cleary said she encountered Mr Devenney as she left and said: \u201cI hope I\u2019ll see you in September and have the opportunity to apply.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe turned around, grinned at me and said: \u2018You never know, you just never know,\u2019 and laughed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
When Mr B testified, he said he had asked Mr Devenney on June 10th, 2022, about the prospect of work the following September.<\/p>\n
Mr Devenney\u2019s reply was: \u201cYes, there should be something in September\u201d, but that he was not sure, Mr B told the tribunal \u2013 adding that the principal said he would let him know before school finished.<\/p>\n
The principal said in his evidence that he \u201cwas not sure\u201d he told Mr B there would be \u201cwork there\u201d for him and that he \u201cnever intended\u201d telling him there was a job for him. However, he said he was \u201cnot disagreeing\u201d with Mr B\u2019s evidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A primary schoolteacher who was passed over for a temporary post has been awarded more than \u20ac42,000 for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,6368,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-86731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donegal","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":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86731","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=86731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}