Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

Coordinator in a home care service

Home care service provider

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994

CA-00010369-001

23/03/2017

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 77 of the Employment Equality Act, 1998

CA-00010369-002

23/03/2017

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977

CA-00010369-003

23/03/2017

Preliminary matter.

Request for postponement.

The respondent referred to his request for postponement notified to the WRC at around the time of the commencement of the hearing. His child had been unwell the previous night and was being cared for by her mother. He had had to make a lot of rearrangements. It was noted that the complainant who works in the UK had extended her stay to attend the hearing. She does come regularly to Ireland. The hearing had been delayed by about an hour and a half to enable respondent to make arrangements. The hearing then proceeded.

Background

Three complaints have been submitted.

The complainant commenced employment as a care coordinator with the respondent on 20/10/2015. Her monthly, gross salary was €2083.

Difficulties emerged around the content of her role and her responsibilities and the style of management. Her line manager changed her terms and conditions, made comments about her age and the respondent declined to engage with her requests to use the agreed grievance procedure to resolve these concerns.

The complainant was on sick leave from 19th August 2016 – 10th March 2017.

She resigned her position on 8/3/17.

She lodged a complaint with the WRC under the three above named statutes on 23/3/17.

She took up alternative employment on 22/3/2107.

Her preferred remedy is compensation.

1.CA 00010369-001: Complaint under The Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994.

The complainant asserts that the respondent breached section 5 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 (the 1994 Act) in failing to notify her in writing of a significant change to her terms of employment. Her contract of employment states that” any significant changes will be notified to you in writing, one month in advance. You will be deemed to have accepted these changes if you do not object by the end of the one month period.”

Significant Changes:

A. The complainant advises that in or around February 2016     the care line manager who was her line manager verbally advised her not to engage with another care assistant contrary to the duties set out in her in her job description which identified the following functions:

Manage the coordination of carers and customers on a day to day basis

And

Lead, develop and motivate the coordination team.

This advice not to liaise with another staff member is incompatible with the fulfilment of those terms.

The complainant advises that for the period October 2015 – January 2016 she was talking to customers and care assistants. She understood that it was her job to see that the rota was produced and that clients’ needs were met and that clients would enjoy consistency in terms of care workers. She refers to the record of a meeting of 6/1/16, written by the care manager and opened at the hearing, which notes that the complainant has a tendency to involve herself in care- related discussions with the care assistants concerning for example the client’s medication and that she has been requested not to engage in this type of conversation.

The complainant states that she was advised in February 2016 not to engage with an intern in the service in case the intern might make mistakes similar to those made by the complainant.

The complainant’s oral evidence was that the line manager advised the complainant that the rota was the responsibility of the line manager and that she was overall manager of the service and would make changes to the rota as required.

B. The complainant cites another breach. Her job description specified “keeping records and paper files up to date with changing information”. The complainant asserts that the request put to her by her line manager in and around February 2016 - to   maintain computerised records in addition to paper files is a significant change warranting written notification and the absence of same constitutes a breach a breach of the 1994 Act.

She advises that she wrote to the respondent about the respondent’s grievance procedure but received no response.

2. CA 00010369-002. Claim of Discrimination contrary to the Employment Equality act,1998

The complaint form submitted to the WRC on the 23/3/2017 dates the most recent act of discrimination as having occurred on the 18/8/17. It states that the respondent discriminated against her on the age grounds in denying her training, and in harassing her. She also claims that she was victimised.

She advises that her line manager stated to her on a number of occasions around April 2016 that older people are slower. The complainant referred to comments made by the line manager to her to the effect that she might find it difficult to cope when the service became busier. She understood the manager believed her too be too slow in completing her work due to her age.

She states that the same care manager told other members of staff not to engage with her and excluded her from meetings which she had previously attended.

She states that her work was excessively monitored in comparison to younger colleagues in similar roles to the extent that the care manager was staying back late at night checking her work. The complainant advises that this behaviour which she considered to be examples of discrimination and harassment led to her being ill and left her with no choice but to resign.

Statutory time limits.

The complainant attempted to activate the grievance procedure and notified her employer of her concerns, but her efforts to resolve matters and to secure a resolution to her concerns were ignored by the respondent who failed to respond to her efforts to engage. Th complainant’s legal representative submitted that she had written to the respondent on the 8/9/16 ,23/11/16,20/12/16 and (by way of her solicitor) on 23/1/17. She engaged with WRC mediation services on 6/11/16 to no avail. This resulted in a delay in submitting her complaint to the WRC. The complainant advised that she believed that submitting a complaint to the WRC could endanger her continued employment with the respondent.

The complainant stated that she was also inhibited in meeting the 6 months’ statutory limit required as she was on sick leave due to workplace stress.

3.CA 00010369-003. Complaint under section 8 of The Unfair Dismissals Act,

The relevant statutory provision is S. 1(b) of Unfair Dismissals Act ,1977.

The complainant’s legal representative set out the statutory provisions governing a case of constructive dismissal.

The evidence against the respondent in this complaint was that the complainant was caused to be absent from work on certified sick leave from 19 August 2016- 10 March 2017 due to the actions of the respondent, its servants and/or agents in failing to engage with her complaints. She was at all times willing and motivated to return to work. The complainant reports that she wrote to the respondent on

8/9/2016

23/11/2016,

20/12/2016

And her solicitor wrote to the respondent on 23/1/2017. Copies of same were furnished.

The complainant wanted the respondent to deal with her complaints about changes in terms of employment, comments about her age and her sense that the care manager wished to get rid of her. The complainant received no response to these letters. The complainant understood this failure to respond to mean that the employer would continue to ignore her efforts to return to work. Given the need for an income she concluded that she had no alternative but to look for employment elsewhere.

The complainant resigned on 8/3/2107 and maintains that this involuntary resignation constituted constructive dismissal.

She is currently employed on a salary of approximately €500 less per month than that earned with the respondent.

The complainant’s legal representative referred to a number of precedents. She cited Michael Murray v rockabilly Shellfish Ltd., UD1832/2010. The rationale set out in the latter case which was that the employee

“must act reasonably in terminating his contract of employment …….. and all other options including following the grievance procedure must be explored”

was well met by the complainant in the within case in that the complainant sought to invoke the grievance procedure, suggested a mediation session to her employer and engaged with same. The complainant’s legal representative avers that the respondent’s failure to engage with the complainant and the grievance procedure is a breach of an essential term of a contract and is evidence of the respondent’s unwillingness to be bound by the terms of the contract. These points demonstrate that the dismissal of the complainant meets both the ‘contract’ test and the reasonableness test one or both of which the dismissal of a complainant must satisfy to succeed in a complaint of constructive dismissal. These two tests were set out by Lord denning MR in Western Excavating (ECC) v Sharp (1978) and repeatedly set out in subsequent complaints of constructive dismissal and described thus:

“conduct which is a significant breach going to the root of the contract of employment, or which shows that the employer no longer intends to be bound by one or more of the essential terms of the contract then the employee is entitled to treat himself discharged from any further performance”.

The reasonable test was expressed as

“an employer who conducts himself or his affairs so unreasonably that the employee cannot be fairly be expected t put up with it any longer, the employee is justified in leaving”

The complainant’s representative argued that the respondent’s failure to engage with the complainant on 4 occasions constitutes a fundamental breach.

Other cases opened by the legal representative which she believes support the complainant’s case include ADJ -00006460, ADJ 00006466, ADJ 3465, ADJ 00003955.

The respondent is a home care service provider to elderly people and people with disabilities.

The complainant resigned her position on 8/3/17.

1.CA -00010369. Complaint under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994.

The respondent refutes the claim that there was any change in the terms and conditions of her employment. The respondent stated that at no point was the complainant’s role changed. The respondent advises that she did not used the grievance procedure to address her concerns. The respondent denies the charge that there was a significant change to the conditions with a reference to computerised filing. No change occurred in the requirement to store information nor was this put to the respondent as a complaint or a concern. The format for storing may have been different. KPIs can only be done on the computer. He references an email from the complainant dated 13/6/16 which makes no references to these concerns.

The complainant contends that the respondent changed those terms of her job description which required her to

Manage the coordination of carers and customers on a day to day basis

And

Lead, develop and motivate the coordination team.

An example of this was the care manager’s alleged instruction to her not to engage with a colleague and to exempt herself from working with the respondent’s administration team. This is refuted by the respondent. It never happened. The complainant never raised this matter with the respondent and provides no dates or evidence re same. The respondent reports that there was never any such outright ban imposed on any member of staff but that she was advised against certain types of engagement with care assistants such as checking with them after hours, giving opinions on the best medication or exercising a supervisory function. A note of a meeting on January 2016 records this advice. Eight weeks training was provided to the complainant at the commencement of her employment and she was advised at that point that her role was not supervisory and to refer such matters concerning either clients or care workers to the line manager. It was not the complainant’s job to supervise staff, that was the job of the line manager; it was her job to coordinate- to see clients had been assigned care workers. She was not prevented from working with an intern but was not permitted to train or instruct her.

The respondent advised that the complainant did express the view that she was responsible for the roster but was advised at a one to one meeting with the care manager on 17/8/16 and by the director on 8/8/16 that the care manager had overall responsibility for the roster and could amend according to service requirements.

2.CA -00010369-002. Complaint under section 77 of The Employment Equality Act ,1998

The respondent stated that the complaint was out of time.

The complainant never raised the alleged derogatory comments concerning her age with the respondent and had an opportunity to do so at the meeting of the 8/8/16. No dates were given as to when the ageist comments were made. The first he heard of this issue was when he saw it on the WRC complaint form.

The complainant did raise the issue of discontinued involvement in the weekly management meetings on 29 /6/16. It was explained to her that it was unnecessary for the complainant to attend for the entirety of the meeting but to attend for the section that was relevant to her role. This was the practice in all of the other offices throughout the country. She had been mistakenly invited to attend meetings by the care manager who had commenced in her employment one month prior to the complainant, who did invite her to management meetings but the Director decided that it was unnecessary for the complainant to attend for the entire meeting and advised the care manager of this.

Then respondent advised that she was given the same training as the younger employees   and he referred to a training course attended in March 2016 by the complainant as well as the newer, younger employee to whom she referred.

The respondent refutes that she was told not to engage with members of the management administrative team; she was told not to act in a supervisory manner towards fellow workers or fellow members of the administration team.

The respondent refutes that she experienced more scrutiny of her work than that applied to younger employees. She was obliged to submit a daily check list- a practice which was developed in 2014. She declined to do this and hence the care manager had to ask her a lot of questions. She had a problem being managed by her line manager.

The respondent advised that the complainant did raise her concerns about how she was being treated by the care manager at the August meeting and he advised her of the opportunity of the Grievance procedure and the Dignity at Work policy. She said that she was fearful of invoking a procedure and again said this could endanger her continued employment with the employer. He reassured her that the contrary was the case.

3. CA 00010369-003. Complaint under section 8 of The Unfair Dismissals Act,1977.

The respondent denies that the complainant was dismissed and argues that she resigned voluntarily.

The respondent acknowledged that at the return to work meeting on the 8/8/16 the complainant did raise the issue of what she described as bullying behaviour by the care manager and how she was being managed. The note of the meeting records that the director advised her of the opportunity which the grievance procedure and the Dignity at Work policy might offer to resolve the matters. The note records the complainant stating that using a grievance procedure is tantamount to saying good bye to your job. He believed that he dissuaded her on this point. He considered that the meeting ended amicably.

He did receive the email of 8/9/16 some weeks later, which she sent to X who was managing director of the franchise and not of the company and who had advised the complainant to continue with the process. The respondent-nominated doctor had written to the respondent to state that the complainant would be fit to return to work at the end of October 2016 and so the respondent did not follow up on this email as she was on out sick on stress related illness and he planned to address her concerns on her return. The same doctor recommended a different department but the respondent explained that this was not possible, though he wold have given her a reference for another provider in the area. As far as the respondent was concerned he wanted the complainant to return to work. He wrote to her on the 9/11/16 enquiring about her return to work and she states that she received same on the 19/11/16 stating that he had been expecting her to return to work on around the 23/10/16 in accordance with the company doctor’s diagnosis. He did receive her letter of the 23/11/16, addressed correctly, stating that she was unfit to work until 1/12/16 and was awaiting medical advice, a letter which repeated her request for the medical report from the respondent- nominated doctor, but omitted to mention the grievance procedure. He responded on 11/12/17 to tell her that the file was ready for collection and he offered to give it to her on set dates. He categorically denies that he received the complainant’s letter dated the 20/12/16 which suggests mediation and which asks what stage of the grievance procedure had been reached. He denies that he received the solicitor’s letter or 23/1/17 advising him of the complainant’s desire to return to work and asking the respondent to commit to mediation. He furnished documents showing his correct address. He submitted copies of the complainant’s letter of the 23/11/16 and her resignation letter of 8/3/17 which had a manually amended postal district number posted to the correct address. He received both letters. He also received returned property at the correct address. He submitted copies of the incorrectly addressed letters of 20/12/16 and 23/1/17.

He noted as well that a screen shot submitted in the complainant’s documents had the correct address on it.

He therefore did not refuse to engage with the complainant. The respondent states that he cannot understand why the complainant did not write to him or his fellow director and wrote instead to the managing director of the franchise. He also states that he cannot understand why she did not follow up unanswered letters with a phone call.

The respondent stated that he would have had her back. Her main difficulty was in accepting the exercise of managerial functions by her line manager.

He does not accept that the remarks as stated were made to her, nor that she was ostracised or that the grounds, as alleged, justified her resignation.

1.CA -00010369-001 Complaint under section 7 of The Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994

The complainant asserts that the respondent breached section 5 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994 in failing to notify her of a change to her terms of employment. She maintains that the change imposed was significant.

Section 5 of the 1994 Act states that where “an employer proposes to change any term of the contract of employment in respect of which particulars should be given under the Act, written notice of nature and date of change must be given to employee “

Section 5 confers protection on the precise terms set out in sections 3 and 4 of the 1994 Act. The particulars set out in these sections of the 1994 Act do not encompass an extension – if extension it was- to maintain electronic files in addition to paper files. This is an administrative change. Similarly, it cannot be argued that the particulars include the breadth of management functions flowing from a particular role or supervisory functions or who reports to whom.

The complainant maintains that the change imposed was significant. There is a conflict of evidence here with the respondent arguing that the role was unchanged. The terms of the contract which the complainant alleges was changed without written notice are contained in the job description and which required her to

Manage he coordination of carers and customers on a day to day basis;

lead, develop and motivate the coordination team

and keep paper files and records up to date with changing information.

The contract of employment signed by the complainant on 20/10/15 states

“You will be required to be completely flexible in your position as a Co-ordinator and must be prepared to undertake such duties as may be assigned to you by the Organisation from time to time”

The oral and written evidence indicates differing interpretations about how the complainant should exercise the functions as stated above. Her job description allowed for interpretation. The differing interpretation on for example responsibility for drawing up the roster which troubled the complainant from January 2016 did surface in meetings. Either the care manager or the one of the two directors did address the boundaries of her role in response to her questions and concerns as evidence in the notes from meetings. The meeting of the 6/1/16 requested her not to get involved in the care related discussions with care staff in other words she should not engage in the elements of the care package or the medication which a client should be prescribed. There was no follow on to those meetings in terms of exercising the grievance procedure. The complainant had a much broader view of her role than that held by the respondent. This was addressed in meetings and there was evidence that the respondent proposed some measures to reduce conflict and build a better working relationship.

The contract allowed for flexibility.

For the reasons cited above, I do not find that there was a breach of Section 5 of the Act. The Complaint fails.

2. Complaint under section 77 of The Employment Equality Act

Statutory Time limits:

The complaint was submitted to the WRC on 23/3/17. It identifies the date of the last act of discrimination as the 19/8/18. Section 77 (4), (5) (a) provides that a claim for redress may not be referred “after the end of the period of 6 months from the date of the occurrence of the discrimination to which the case relates, or, as the case may be, the date of its most recent occurrence”.

Section 77(4) (5) (b) allows a complaint to be heard within a further 6  months where reasonable cause exists.

The standard test set out by the Labour Court for the purpose of granting an extension of time is that formulated in Cementation Skanska and Carroll,DWT0338 in the following terms: -

“It is the Court's view that in considering if reasonable cause exists, it is for the claimant to show that there are reasons which both explain the delay and afford an excuse for the delay. The explanation must be reasonable, that is to say it must make sense, be agreeable to reason and not be irrational or absurd. In the context in which the expression reasonable cause appears in the statute it suggests an objective standard, but it must be applied to the facts and circumstances known to the claimant at the material time. The claimant’s failure to present the claim within the six-month time limit must have been due to the reasonable cause relied upon. Hence there must be a causal link between the circumstances cited and the delay and the claimant should satisfy the Court, as a matter of probability, that had those circumstances not been present he would have initiated the claim in time”.

The Labour Court in that case decided to extend time as the claimant was entitled to rely on a genuinely held belief that a test case taken by his colleague would apply to all similarly affected fellow employees, a view also held by some of the management team and conveyed to the claimant. The claimant did not have independent professional advice.

In another case, Kylemore Service Group and Michael Loftus, UDD1628, the court declined to extend time where the complainant relied on his homelessness and mental health problems. The court noted that he had the capacity to instruct on other proceedings. “The Court takes the view that as the Complainant had the capacity to issue those instructions there is no reason to find that he did not have equal capacity to issue instructions to the CIS to file a complaint under this Act on his behalf with the WRC.”

The case advanced to extend time was that the complainant had attempted to activate the grievance procedure and that this caused the delay.

The facts and circumstances of each case must be matched with the concept of reasonable cause.

The complainant had professional advice available to her in October 2017. Her representative wrote to the respondent on 3/1/17 advising that she was referring a complaint to the Office of the Data Protection. So, the complainant was engaged with activating a complaint under a different statute. The complainant’s own written submission states that she believed the respondent would continue to ignore her efforts to engage with the grievance procedure so it is difficult to reconcile that statement with the argument that delaying a referral of her complaint to the WRC could enable the grievance procedure to be activated and to deliver a resolution. A belief that the respondent will ignore your efforts is surely all the more reason to progress the complaint to the external agencies as provided for in the procedure. The respondent’s grievance procedure does provide for a referral of a complaint to the Rights Commissioners where internal efforts to resolve the issues have failed. While the reasons advanced may explain a delay, they do not excuse the delay.

The evidence submitted does not justify the delay. I do not have jurisdiction to hear this complaint.

3. Complaint under section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.

Constructive dismissal is defined in s 1. of the act, as

“The termination by the employee of his contract of employment with his employer whether prior notice of the termination was or was not given to the employer, in circumstances in which, because of the conduct of the employer, the employee is or would have been entitled, or it was or would have been reasonable for the employee to terminate the contract without giving prior notice of the termination to the employer”

A.Burden of Proof. Tests to be applied to a claim of Constructive Dismissal.

The proofs which the complainant must advance to prove her case are that the behaviour of the respondent and of which she complains corresponds with the requirements laid out in one or both of the two tests and was behaviour which left her with no option other than resignation. As stated previously at page 5 of this decision they are the ‘contract test’ and/or the ‘reasonableness test’.

Did the employer’s behaviour meet the threshold of behaviour so intolerable as to conclude that resignation was the only option? Not only that, the complainant will be obliged to demonstrate that she made attempts to cure the deficits. The complainant’s behaviour in resigning will also have to be adjudged in the light of precedent cases.

B.The actions of the employer which persuaded her to ultimately resign.

1.Comments about her age. The complainant was unclear as to whether she put remarks about her age to the director and care manager– the alleged author of such statements to them at the meeting on the   8/8/16.

2. Significant changes to her terms of employment which she wished to address via the grievance procedure There is conflict about the changes imposed in her work practices. The job description was sufficiently broad to allow a person to believe that some supervisory or managerial functions would attach to the role but the respondent states that the training course clarified these matters. However, it is understandable how the complainant might have interpreted her role to be different to that understood by the line manager.

3.Bullying behaviour by her line manager.

The complainant used this term to the director on the 8/8/16. He advised her that the Dignity at Work policy was there to address such issues. The policy requires the complainant to submit a complaint in writing with details to the director if informal efforts fail to deliver an acceptable outcome. This did not happen. The complainant did use the same term to the manging director of the franchise and he advised her to use the process.

4.The refusal of the employer to engage with the grievance procedure to resolve matters.

Her first attempt to activate the grievance procedure occurred in her email of the 8/9/17 to the managing director of the franchise. She identified her complaints as

bullying behaviour,

discrimination which was not linked to any ground,

a fear that the care manager wanted to be rid of her and

lack of confidence in the bone fides of those vested with responsibility to process her grievances and a belief that they were just going through the motions.

It is reasonable to accept that the complainant’s letter to the managing director of the franchise was intended to activate an investigation of her concerns. The complainant’s representative pointed out that he was listed as a managing director of the company so it was reasonable to contact him. He did state in an email response dated the 12/9/16 that his company was a third party with no jurisdiction to act in the matter and advised her go with the process. To follow the process can only mean the grievance procedure. Yet the complainant’s email of the 8/9/16 to him states that she has engaged with the directors informally on both the grievance procedure and the Dignity at Work Policy and does not consider them to be doing more than just going through the motions.  She advised that her preference was for mediation, that she was reluctant to refer a complaint to the WRC or to make a complaint of constructive dismissal. She did not comply with the requirement to invoke the formal stages by way of referral to the care manager, the director and if neither of these were successful, to the state agencies.

C. The respondent’s failure to engage with the grievance procedure; a breach of a term of the contract?

I accept the complainant’s representative statement that the address which she was used was taken from the CRO. I accept on the balance of probabilities that the respondent did not receive the letter of 20/12/16 or the letter of the 23/1/17 expressly referring to the grievance procedure. I do so because the incorrect address which was used for these 2 letters was also the address used by the WRC and these letters were returned to the WRC. I was given copies of the correct address. The complainant’s letter of the 23/11/16 seeking a copy of the medical report was correctly addressed and received. The resignation letter of 8/3/17 was correctly addressed and received.

The respondent was aware that there were problems. The evidence persuades me that the respondent did signpost the two procedures that is the Grievance Procedure and The Dignity at Work Procedures to the complainant. The contract identifies the policies processes which the employee should activate if he/she has any concerns.

It is entirely misfortunate that the letters attempting to activate the grievance procedure were misdirected. This denied both parties the opportunity to attempt a resolution. The respondent cannot be fairly said to have breached the term obliging him to engage with the grievance procedure if he did not receive those requests.

Likewise, his behaviour which was hardly proactive and insufficiently responsive to the complainant’s troubled state could hardly be said to have reached a threshold of unreasonableness sufficient to compel the complainant to tender her resignation.

Upon being questioned the respondent advised that he did not ask her to reconsider her position as two weeks prior to her resignation on 8/3/17 another employer asked for a reference for her.

D. Precedent cases cited by complainant’s representative in support of the complaint of constructive dismissal.

i) Michael Murray v rockabilly Shellfish Ltd., UD1832/2010.

The respondent refused to engage with the complainant’s concerns and refused to use the grievance procedure. In addition, the Tribunal noted that the complainant had been forced to comply with “dubious and appalling work practices “.

ii) Adjudication decision 6460 was cited on behalf of complainant. It was not disputed that the complainant had raised specific and detailed matters. Complainant received treatment or counselling. Her complaint of constructive dismissal was not upheld as she resigned before an external investigator could examine and report.

iii) Adjudication decision 00003463 concerned a complaint of constructive dismissal which was upheld. In this case the complaint was suspended, not afforded the opportunity to defend herself and the respondent breached its own Dignity at Work policy.

I do not see how these cases can assist the complainant in proving that she was constructively dismissed in accordance with the standard tests as the circumstances are quite different. There was a refusal to use the procedure in the first case coupled with a description of “appalling and dubious work practices” in the second, the complaint was not upheld as the complainant acted prematurely and in the third, the breach was found to have gone to the root of the contract in that the complainant was suspended without being given an opportunity to defend herself and the respondent breached his own Dignity at Work policy.

Based on the written and oral evidence and for the reasons cited above, I do not find that the complaint has demonstrated that the employer’s behaviour was so unreasonable as to merit her resignation . Nor do I find that there was a breach of the term of a contract. The complaint is not well founded.

I .CA -00010369. Complaint under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994.

I do not uphold the complaint.

2. CA 00010369-002. Complaint under section 77 of The Employment Equality Act, 1998.

I do not uphold this complaint.

3.CA 00010369-003. Complaint under section 8 of The Unfair Dismissals Act,1977.

I do not uphold this complaint.

Breach of terms OF Employment; Administrative changes ; Age discrimination; Statutory time limits and extension of time; Constructive dismissal; misdirected efforts to use the grievance procedure.