THE DEPARTMENT of Defence has been ordered to pay €40,000 to a senior civil servant who was sent to work alone in a decentralised office after he complained of bullying.
The Equality Tribunal found that Tom Barrett, an assistant principal at the department, had not been bullied as per his original complaint, but subsequently was victimised for making the complaint.
Mr Barrett was sent to work in an unoccupied decentralised office of the department in Galway and given no work to do since 2005. The situation was “soul destroying” he told the tribunal.
Mr Barrett made a bullying complaint on the grounds of religious discrimination against his supervisor in 2003. The complaint was dismissed by the tribunal in 2007 as being “misconceived in law”.
However, Mr Barrett claimed that since he filed the complaint the work he was given began to reduce and from 2005 he was given no work whatsoever, with no job description and no annual targets. He had been left by himself in an unoccupied office with nothing to do. He felt isolated and “treated like a pariah” he told the tribunal.
In its defence the department said it had not been possible to have Mr Barrett work under the same supervisor after he made a complaint and that putting him in an office on his own was an attempt to treat him favourably. It added that he had been made offers of other positions but had rejected them.
Mr Barrett said the other positions were not appropriate to his qualifications or experience.
The tribunal said that Mr Barrett did not need to have been successful in his initial complaint of bullying to then take a case of victimisation and found that he had been victimised for making a lawful complaint.
It ordered that he be paid €40,000 for the stress of being given no meaningful work for a particularly long time. It also ordered that he be given meaningful work consistent with the grade of assistant principal officer with immediate effect.
