The Labour Court recently granted the first award under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 (the Act) in respect of penalisation. It determined the employee, a care assistant in a nursing home was unjustly penalised when she was placed on paid suspension for five months for having made a ‘protected disclosure’ concerning an alleged abuse of patients. An award of €17,500 was granted. Compensation up to a maximum of five years remuneration can be awarded to an employee who is penalised for making a protected disclosure.
The Act protects whistle-blowers from penalisation (included threatened penalisation) for making a ‘protected disclosure’. A ‘protected disclosure’ is a disclosure of ‘relevant information’ in accordance with the Act. Such information must, in the ‘reasonable belief of the worker’, tend to show a ‘relevant wrongdoing’ and must have come to the attention of the worker in ‘connection with the worker’s employment’. ‘Relevant wrongdoings’ are defined in an exhaustive list, an example of which is the endangering of an individual’s health and safety.
By way of background in March 2014 Ms Monaghan raised a concern with the nursing home’s Matron about a supervisor and the treatment of patients. Ms Monaghan also organised a meeting of the care assistants to discuss her concerns and raised these directly with HIQA also. An unannounced HIQA investigation took place in May 2014 and Ms Monaghan’s employer also carried out its own investigation. On the basis of that investigation there were indications that Ms Monaghan’s concerns were motivated by malice and she was suspended with pay from June to November 2014.
It was argued by the employer that Ms Monaghan’s concerns were more appropriately defined as grievances, rather than falling within the definition of penalisation within the meaning of the Act. However, the Court held that while a ‘grievance is a matter specific to a worker’, a protected disclosure is ‘where a worker had information about a relevant wrongdoing’. It held that Ms Monaghan’s concerns, which related to ‘alleged health and safety risks to residents’, fell within the definition of a ‘protected disclosure.
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