A teenage mother who was dismissed from her first job after less than nine weeks when she told her boss she was pregnant has been awarded €9,000 by the Labour Court.
Ms Brenda Corcoran, Ballytore, Athy, Co Kildare, who was 18 at the time of her dismissal, and who is now the mother of a six-month- old baby girl, Amber, last night welcomed the award.
"It was great to be awarded the money, even though it meant going over everything again and again in the Labour Court," she told The Irish Times. "But it has all worked out very well in the end."
Ms Corcoran and her baby are living with her parents and she is hoping they will be able to find a place of their own because of the award. Ms Corcoran was found to have been discriminated against by her employers, Assico Assembly Ltd, who were in breach of the Employment Equality Act, 1998, the court's chairman, Mr Finbarr Flood, determined.
She was employed by Assico as a general operative from October 30th, 2001 to January 7th, 2002. She was dismissed because she told Assico she was pregnant, she said.
Assico, in response, told the court there was nothing in her submission to suggest she was "at the time of her impugned dismissal, a parent, in loco parentis or a resident primary carer or otherwise in any way responsible for the well-being of any other person within the meaning of the Act".
On January 7th, 2001, Ms Corcoran told manager Ms Christine Byrne she was pregnant. The response was "certain people would have to be let go" because of a downturn in business, she told the Labour Court.
She was surprised, as she had been hired only nine weeks earlier and was not aware of any downturn in work. The company seemed "as busy as ever" and she was the only person to be let go.
She was quite shocked, she said, as she had not been the last person engaged. She concluded hers "was not a genuine redundancy issue" and that her employment had been ended because of her pregnancy.
Subsequently, she was provided with a reference for the Department of Social Welfare, which stated she was "a very good worker, pleasant and keen to learn any job". It indicated her employment had been terminated because of a downturn in work.
The dismissed teenager was astonished when Assico, in July last year, in a response to her complaint, indicated she had been dismissed "as a result of her poor work performance and absenteeism". Assico said the decision to dismiss Ms Corcoran pre-dated their learning she was pregnant and was not related to this.
The company accepted it had told Ms Corcoran her dismissal arose from a downturn "in order not to demoralise her, given that this was her first job". She was dismissed, the company argued, because of her poor work performance and attendance record.
The court, Mr Flood concluded, could find no evidence that a prior decision had been made to dismiss her. "She had only been employed for a few weeks and as this was her first job, it was likely the company would have to give her extra support before deciding to dismiss her within a short space of time."