Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Georgina Lynch

St James's Hospital

Representatives

Barnaba Dorda, SIPTU

Peter Flood, IBEC

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00042684-001

24/02/2021

The complainant commenced employment in the hospital in September 1999.  She worked as a ward catering assistant.  Her employment ended on August 31st 2020, when she was dismissed for absenteeism.  She claims that her dismissal was unfair, and that her former employer failed to take account of the fact that, as a mitigating factor related to her absences, she was suffering from depression.  Mr Dorda argued that the employer executed a plan to dismiss the complainant and that they did not consider the opinion of her doctor.

The hospital’s case is that the complainant was dismissed for persistently high absence levels and poor punctuality, about which she received warnings over a period of almost two years.  It is their position that, in terminating the complainant’s employment, she was treated fairly and in accordance with the hospital’s procedures for dealing with absenteeism.

In his submission at the hearing, Mr Flood set out the sequence of meetings which the complainant attended with her manager and members of the HR team to discuss her absences.  She was represented at meetings by a colleague, a shop steward or a union official.

December 2018:  The complainant was issued with a verbal warning which was to remain on her file for six months.

April 2019:  The complainant was issued with a written warning which was to remain on her file for nine months.  She was removed from the hospital sick pay scheme.

June 2019:  The complainant did not attend an appointment with the hospital’s occupational health consultant. 

September 2019:  Following a disciplinary meeting, the written warning issued in April 2019 was extended for a further nine months from the date of the meeting, September 4th 2019.  The complainant remained suspended from the sick pay scheme.

November 2019:  The complainant was issued with a verbal warning due to lateness.

December 2019:  The complainant was again referred for an appointment with the occupational health consultant, but she did not attend.

By January 2020, the complainant had been absent on four occasions since October 2019.  She was issued with a final written warning, to remain on her file for 12 months.  She remained ineligible for sick pay.

March 2020:  The complainant phoned her manager and asked her to approve annual leave from her 2020 entitlement.  This was approved, but the manager asked the complainant to meet her to discuss her absences.  The complainant did not attend the meeting.  At the hearing of this complaint, she said that she was on annual leave on the day the meeting was scheduled.

Between January and July 2020, the complainant continued to be intermittently absent from work.  She was out from March 13th until the 23rd and she did not contact her manager.  By failing to report the reason for her absence, she was in breach of the hospital’s absence policy. The hospital sent a letter to the complainant on March 18th and the complainant phoned her manager six days later, claiming that she did not have to get in touch when she was absent.  The complainant said that she would be back at work on Friday, March 27th 2020, and that she would phone her manager the day before.  She did not make contact on the Thursday and she did not return to work on the Friday.

The complainant’s manager phoned her on Monday, March 30th and got no reply.  The manager then wrote to the complainant and followed up with a phone call on Thursday, April 2nd.  The complainant returned the call on Friday, April 3rd and said that she had given medical certs to a colleague, to give to her manager.  The complainant was informed that the colleague was also absent from work.  The medical certificates never materialised.  On April 16th, the manager wrote to the complainant regarding her failure to send in medical certs.  On April 20th, the complainant phoned her manager and said that she would be back at work the following day.  The complainant returned to work, and, at a meeting with her supervisor and the head of catering, she was informed that, if there was no significant improvement in her attendance, she would have to attend a meeting with the HR director and the director of facilities management.

On May 9th and 10th 2020, the complainant was 45 minutes late for her afternoon shift.  On May 22nd, the managers wrote to the complainant and told her that, as soon as the Covid restrictions on meetings was eased, she would be invited to a meeting to her discuss further absences, lates and leaving work early without permission.  On eight occasions after this letter was sent, the complainant was late by between 30 minutes and one hour.  On May 24th, having been an hour late for work, she left the hospital early without permission.

On July 28th 2020, the complainant attended a disciplinary hearing with the HR director and the director of facilities.  She was accompanied by Mr Dorda and her SIPTU shop steward.  The hospital’s employee relations manager attended to take notes.  At the meeting, the managers pointed out that, since her last warning in January 2020, the complainant had been absent for 33 days.  The complainant explained that there were factors contributing to her inability to attend work and she was referred to the occupational health consultant, Dr Loftus, for an examination.  Dr Loftus issued a report on August 7th.  He recommended that the complainant attend counselling.  It is apparent from his report that this was not the first time he recommended counselling.  Dr Loftus did not give an opinion about whether this or any other intervention would result in the complainant attending work regularly. 

A follow-up meeting was held on August 26th 2020.  The complainant complained that she had not been given access to the occupational health service, although, on two occasions, she failed to attend appointments.  She claimed that the management were not supportive and she said that the most recent absence was because of a miscarriage.  She provided no medical certification to confirm that she was out of work because of a miscarriage and the first time this was raised with the management was at the meeting on August 26th.  On August 31st, the director of HR wrote to the complainant and confirmed that a decision had been made to dismiss her.  The 15th and final paragraph of the letter of dismissal from the HR director, Mr Duggan, reads as follows:

“Georgina, we have taken a few days to fully consider this case and take everything into consideration and I regret to say that we have been left with no alternative but to terminate your employment for sustained very poor attendance having exhausted the hospital’s disciplinary procedures.  You are entitled to 8 weeks’ notice in accordance with the Minimum Notice Acts which will run from the date of this letter, 31st August 2020.  You will not be required to work out your notice period and your last day at work will be today, Monday, August 31st.”

Mr Duggan reiterated the respondent’s position in his evidence, when he said that the complainant was dismissed because of her very poor attendance over several years.

On September 30th, at a meeting with the chief executive officer, the complainant appealed against the decision to terminate her employment.  Her appeal was unsuccessful.

Commenting on the complainant’s assertion that she was not offered any accommodation for her illness, Mr Flood asked me to consider the decision of the Labour Court in A School v A Worker[1], where the Court commented that “provision of special treatment or facilities is not an end in itself.”  The complainant never stated that she would be able to come to work on a regular basis, and there was no request for reasonable accommodation.

Mr Flood submitted that the Unfair Dismissals Act provides that a dismissal of an employee is not unfair if it results wholly or mainly from their failure to do the work they were employed to do.  He argued that the dismissal of the complainant was justified on the basis of her persistent, short-term absenteeism.  In this regard, he referred to the following precedents:

Musgrave Wholesale Partners and Mr Jonathan Fox[2]

Dublin City Council and Stephen Maguire[3]

Dunnes Stores and Kati Kipli[4]

Evidence of the Head of Catering, Ms Nuala McArdle

Ms McArdle said that, on Sunday, March 8th 2020, she told a colleague that she wouldn’t be in work because her daughter was in hospital.  On Monday and Tuesday, March 8th and 9th, she asked for two and a half day’s holidays from her 2020 allocation, so she was off on Monday and Tuesday and for a half day on Wednesday, March 11th.  She was rostered off on Thursday and Friday, March 12th and 13th and she was rostered on on Saturday and Sunday, March 14th and 15th.

Ms McArdle said that she phoned the complainant on Wednesday, March 11th and she left her a message asking her to confirm that she would be at work on Saturday and Sunday.  The complainant didn’t turn up for work and she didn’t phone to say she would be absent.

On Monday and Tuesday, March 16th and 17th, Ms McArdle phoned the complainant but got no answer.  On Wednesday, March 18th, the deputy catering manager, Ms Bernie Doherty, wrote to the complainant and asked her to “make urgent contact regarding your unauthorised absence.”  The complainant phoned Ms Doherty on March 24th and said that she didn’t have to get in touch when she was absent.  She said she would be back in work on Friday, March 27th and she was asked to confirm this by phoning Ms McArdle the day before.  The complainant did not phone Ms McArdle and she didn’t come to work on March 27th.

On Monday, March 30th, the complainant did not answer a call from Ms McArdle and on Tuesday, March 31st, Ms McArdle sent a letter by hand to the complainant and asked her to “make contact and provide a date of return.”  Ms McArdle said that she phoned the complainant on Thursday, April 2nd, but got no answer.  She didn’t answer again on the morning of Friday, April 3rd, but phoned back in the afternoon and said that she had given her medical certs to a colleague.  She was informed that her colleague was also absent.  Medical certs eventually arrived in the catering manager’s office on Thursday, April 16th.  They were out of date and Ms McArdle wrote again to the complainant to inform her that she was considered to be on unauthorised absence until medical certs were received in a timely manner.  On Monday, April 20th, the complainant phoned her line manager, Ms Joanne Reilly, to let her know that she would be back at work the next day.

Evidence of Mr Brian O’Sullivan, Employee Relations Manager

Mr Dorda had questioned whether an absence was unauthorised when it is backed up by a medical certificate.  Mr O’Sullivan said that the reference to “unauthorised absence” in the letter sent to the complainant on May 22nd 2020, refers to sick days.  The reference to unauthorised absence in the absence management policy refers to days when an employee is out sick without the back-up of a medical cert and without contacting their manager.

Evidence of Mr Mark Donegan, HR Business Partner

Mr Donegan said that two disciplinary meetings took place on July 28th and August 26th 2020.  The first was to put forward the problem of the complainant’s absence from the hospital’s perspective and to listen to the complainant’s explanation.  The second meeting was for the management to respond to the complainant’s explanation.   One of the main concerns of the management was the fact that the complainant was out of work between March 8th and April 20th 2020 and that, during that time, she provided no explanation regarding why she was out.

In his submission on behalf of the complainant, Mr Dorda said that their case that her dismissal was unfair is based on the following:

The hospital failed to follow its own disciplinary procedures when it did not conduct an investigation into the complainant’s absence before inviting her to a stage 4 disciplinary hearing.

No information was provided regarding who complained about the complainant’s absence.

The hospital failed to distinguish between authorised and unauthorised absence and the complainant was dismissed because of her absence of 34 days between February and July 2020, when one episode of absence was for 30 days.  The sanction of dismissal was applied regardless of the employee’s explanation of the reason for her absence.

No account was taken of the complainant’s mitigating circumstances.  She had to take two and a half days off on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, March 9th, 10th and 11th 2020, because her daughter was in hospital.  At the hearing, the head of catering confirmed that these days were given as holidays from 2020, as the complainant had requested.  Her 30-day absence between March 14th and April 16th 2020 was due to a miscarriage.  Mr Dorda said that the complainant submitted two medical certs to cover this absence, although they were only sent to the hospital on April 16th. 

The absence recorded as unauthorised leave on June 10th was a day on which the complainant said she applied for annual leave.

The complainant suffered from depression, which was known to the respondent, and, although the occupational health consultant recommended a change in her working hours, this was not considered.  

On July 15th 2020, when she was invited to a disciplinary meeting, Mr Dorda contacted the hospital and asked about the outcome of an investigation into the complainant’s absence record.  The manager replied that it was not necessary to conduct an investigation, because the meeting was to discuss evidence already available regarding the complainant’s absence and lateness.  Mr Dorda argued that all the complainant’s absences were being treated as “unauthorised,” when she had medical certs to explain the reasons she was absent.

At the meeting on July 28th 2020, the complainant provided an explanation for her absences.  She had some distressing reasons for being absent, which she had not previously disclosed to her employer.  At the end of the meeting, the complainant was referred to the occupational health consultant.  On August 7th, the consultant provided a report to the hospital in which he said that the complainant has underlying medical conditions, that she was suffering from depression as a result of her mother’s untimely death in 2017 and that this affects her ability to get up in the mornings.  The consultant recommended counselling, which he had done on previous occasions.

Mr Dorda claims that the decision to dismiss the complainant was pre-meditated and that this is shown by the fact that the HR business partner advised the head of catering not to remind the complainant that she had not submitted sick certs on time in respect of her absence in March and April 2020.  At the disciplinary hearing, the complainant’s medical certs were disregarded, because they did not give the reason that she was out sick.

As part of the appeal process, the chief executive officer interviewed some people but she did not disclose the minutes of her meetings with those people.  Mr Dorda’s position is that, if witnesses had relevant information, they should have been interviewed as part of an investigation, and that the complainant should have been given an opportunity to hear the evidence and to respond to it.

Arguing that the dismissal of the complainant was unfair, Mr Dorda said that most of her absences from 2018 onwards were related to depression arising from the death of her mother and difficulties in her relationship with her husband.  She was looking after three children on her own, and this affected her attendance.  In January 2020, at the last disciplinary meeting, the complainant explained that her depression and her difficult personal circumstances were having an impact on her health and her employer agreed to refer her again to the occupational health consultant; however, no appointment was made.  The complainant attended some counselling sessions; however, Mr Dorda said that the hospital took no account of her difficulties and dealt with her absenteeism “by the book.”

Mr Dorda said that the complainant always kept in touch when she was out sick and there is no issue with her being out of contact.  The letter of invitation to the disciplinary meeting refers to the problem of absenteeism, and not the problem of not getting in touch with a manager about being absent.

Mr Dorda also suggested that the HR department attempted to “set a trap” for the complainant, when they did not tell her that she was required to provide a medical certificate for her absence from March 9th to April 19th, resulting in her being on unauthorised leave for that period.

Referring to the hospital’s focus on the number of days for which the complainant was absent, Mr Dorda said that no consideration was given to the reasons for the absences.  The complainant had a miscarriage in March and was absent from March 11th until April 20th 2020.  The complainant returned to work on April 21st and a month later, on May 22nd, she was informed of the management’s intention to hold a stage 4 disciplinary hearing regarding two episodes of absence, being late on five occasions and leaving work early on two occasions.  The disciplinary meeting only took place on July 28th.  During this period of three months, the hospital knew about the complainant’s absences, but no meetings took place and the management did nothing to address the issue.

Summarising his arguments on behalf of the complainant, Mr Dorda said that neither he nor the complainant are disputing the fact that she was absent from work from March 14th until April 20th.   He said that medical certs were provided in respect of this absence.  He said that there is no mandatory requirement to provide certs on a weekly basis.  He said that the hospital classified the complainant’s absences on March 9th, 10th and 11th as absences, but we now know that this was annual leave.  Mr Dorda said that the disciplinary procedure should only be triggered in relation to unauthorised absences.

In June 2020, the complainant had to attend the Coombe Hospital and she asked for a day’s holidays.  She said that she is nearly sure that she filled in a leave sheet for this day off.

Mr Dorda argued that the disciplinary process must comprise an investigation and a disciplinary hearing and he said that he has a concern about how the process was handled.  Mr Dorda said that the hospital failed to follow basic principles of fair procedures and that they disregarded the mitigating circumstances that led to the complainant being out sick.  He said that the complainant’s lateness for work was “rooted in depression” and her absences were mainly caused by her miscarriage and by her daughter being in hospital.  Mr Dorda said that the hospital has a duty of care to its employees who are ill.  The complainant was not referred to the employee assistance programme after January 2020, although she requested a referral.  No action was taken to support the complainant to come to work regularly, such as shorter working hours. 

Mr Dorda said that the respondent avoided conducting an investigation and, along with the timing of her dismissal at the beginning of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, this was unfair.  He submitted that the sanction of dismissal was too harsh.  The complainant was not able to find alternative work and, on the date of this hearing, she had not worked since her dismissal.

The Legal Position

Mr Dorda referred to the requirement for the hospital to demonstrate that there were substantial grounds for the dismissal of the complainant and to show that, based on all the facts, the decision to dismiss the complainant was reasonable.  He referred to the following legal precedents:

Frizelle v New Ross Credit Union Limited[5]

Higgins v Irish Rail[6]

Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland v James Reilly[7]

O’Donnell v Stafford Miller[8]

The Complainant’s Case that her Dismissal was Unfair

In his submission, Mr Dorda set out the reasons that the complainant argues that her dismissal was unfair:

1.              The hospital failed to conduct a proper investigation.

2.              Approved unpaid sick leave, sick leave and annual leave were considered as unauthorised absences regardless of the complainant’s explanations.

3.              The hospital did not say who made a complaint about the complainant’s absences.

4.              During her investigation into the complainant’s appeal of the decision to dismiss her, the chief executive officer interviewed people but did not provide minutes of those interviews.

5.              The hospital did not take account of mitigating circumstances that caused the complainant’s absences.

6.              The decision to dismiss the complainant was planned in a predetermined way by the HR department.

7.              The hospital did not follow fair procedures.

Evidence of the Complainant

At the hearing, the complainant said that the excuses for her absences are real.  She said that she had a miscarriage and that her daughter fell down the stairs at home and had to be admitted to hospital.  The complainant said that she was refused force majeure leave.  Following her miscarriage, the complainant said that she submitted a medical cert on a fortnightly basis, but she was asked to provide one on a weekly basis.  She said that her mother’s death affected her mental health. 

In January 2020, when she received a final written warning, the complainant said that she was absent due to Covid-19.  On June 11th, she had an appointment in the Coombe Hospital and she asked for holidays but the holidays were not entered into the holiday spreadsheet.

The Relevant Law

Section 6(1) of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 provides that:

“Subject to the provisions of this section, the dismissal of an employee shall be deemed, for the purposes of this Act, to be an unfair dismissal, unless, having regard to all the circumstances, there were substantial grounds justifying the dismissal.”

The burden of proof rests with the hospital to establish the substantial grounds justifying the dismissal of the complainant.  In her case, the conduct that resulted in her dismissal is the hospital’s belief that, having been warned on a number of occasions, and having proceeded through the stages of the disciplinary procedure, she could not be relied on to attend work on a regular basis.

Section 6(4)(a) of the Act provides that;

 “…the dismissal of an employee shall be deemed, for the purposes of this Act not to be an unfair dismissal if it results wholly or mainly from

(a)    the capability, competence or qualifications of the employee for performing the work of the kind he was employed by the employer to do.”

In the case under consideration, the issue is the complainant’s capability – is she capable of regular attendance?  The essence of the contract between an employer and an employee is that an employee will come to work regularly on the days they are contracted to do so.  It is accepted that when an employee is ill, they should not attend for work; however, where an illness interferes with an employee’s ability to attend work regularly, a dismissal for reasons of incapacity may not be unfair.

Was the Decision to Dismiss the Complainant Reasonable in the Circumstances?

As was established more than 40 years ago in the case at the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) of Bunyan v UDT (Ireland) Limited[9], the fairness or otherwise of an employer’s decision to impose the most serious sanction of dismissal must be judged by an objective test:

“…the fairness or unfairness of the dismissal is to be judged by the objective standard of the way in which a reasonable employer in those circumstances in that line of business would have behaved.  The Tribunal therefore does not decide the question whether or not on the evidence before it, the employee should be dismissed.  The decision to dismiss has been taken and our function is to test such decision against what we consider the reasonable employer would have done and/or concluded.”

Taking the circumstances confronting this employer and this employee into account, my role, as the adjudicator and the successor to the EAT is to determine if the decision of the hospital to dismiss the complainant was the action of a reasonable employer.

On December 19th 2018, the complainant received a verbal warning in relation to the frequency of her absences.  At the meeting preceding the warning, her manager told her that she was a good worker but that her absences were having an effect on her colleagues and on the service that the catering department provided to patients.  The complainant said that she was taking steps to address the health issues that were causing her absences.

Less than six months later, in April 2019, the complainant was issued with a written warning concerning her ongoing absences.  Her entitlement to pay while she was absent was suspended.  In June 2019, she failed to attend an appointment with the hospital’s occupational health consultant.  By September 2019, the complainant’s record of days lost to due absence had not improved and the hospital issued another written warning, for a period of nine months.

In November 2019, the complainant had been considerably late for work on four occasions and she was issued with a verbal warning in relation to punctuality.

When the new year commenced in 2020, aside from lateness, the complainant had been absent on four occasions since she received the written warning in September 2019.  On January 27th 2020, she was issued with a final written warning.  After that, she was out sick on February 18th.  She was on holidays for two and a half days on March 9th, 10th and 11th because her daughter was in hospital.  She was then absent from March 14th until April 20th 2020.  During this period of six weeks, she did not contact her manager to explain why she was out and she rarely answered phone calls.  In her evidence at the hearing, she said that the reason she was absent was because she had a miscarriage.  This was not referred to on the medical certs that she submitted on April 16th.  At the hearing, the complainant said that, to help me to reach a decision on her complaint, she would provide me with a letter from her doctor confirming the reason for her absence; however, she did not do so.

The complainant was absent again on June 10th 2020, a day on which she said that she was sure that she applied for a day’s leave.  There is no record of this request.  Between May and July 2020, she was late on nine occasions and, on one occasion, she left work early without permission.

Response to the Union’s Case that the Dismissal of the Complainant was Unfair

I have listened to the submissions made by Mr Dorda at the hearing and his concern that the hospital failed to conduct a proper investigation into the complainant’s absence.  His position is that the hospital should have carried out a disciplinary investigation meeting and then followed up with a disciplinary hearing.  It is my view that no unfairness arises from the hospital’s decision to hold a disciplinary hearing on July 28th 2020.  The letter sent by the hospital to invite the complainant to the meeting provided a clear outline of the reason for the meeting and the absences that were the cause of concern.  The meeting on July 28th was followed by a second meeting on August 26th and it is apparent that the hospital did not expedite the complainant’s dismissal without giving her and her representative an opportunity to challenge the reason for the dismissal and to state her case.

I note Mr Dorda’s concern that the hospital treated all the complainant’s absences as unauthorised, although she provided “a relevant explanation.”  The fact of the matter is that all absence due to illness is unauthorised, unless it can be approved in advance, which may occur when an employee has a medical appointment or anticipates being incapacitated or in hospital in advance.  It is clear to me that, since 2017, when her mother died, the complainant went through a very difficult time and she suffered from stress and depression because of personal issues.  On the other hand, her job was a reliable and stable component of her life.  Her managers were willing to support her if she could commit to coming to work regularly and on time.  Although the employee assistance service was available to her and she attended some sessions of counselling, she wasn’t able to give her job the commitment that was required to avoid being dismissed.

I do not accept Mr Dorda’s suggestion that the decision to dismiss the complainant came at the end of a “tick-box” exercise.  There was no element of precipitation or of waiting for the complainant to “trip up” in some way before she was dismissed.  I also note his concern about the email from the HR Business Partner, Mr Donegan, to the catering manager, Ms McArdle, on April 21st 2020 in which Mr Donegan said, “If she attends for work and does not mention certs, I’d say nothing about them.”  At that point, Ms McArdle had written twice to the complainant, seeking an explanation for her absence and she had not replied.  On the date of this email, it is my view that there was no point in continuing to look for medical certs.  In any event, as I have stated above, apart from some exceptions, absences due to illness are unauthorised, whether they are certified or not.

With regard to Mr Dorda’s allegation that “someone unknown” made a complaint about the complainant, I am satisfied that no one complained about her.  Her absences were not a secret and her dismissal was the outcome from her failure to attend work regularly.

Having considered the facts, it is my view that the complainant’s absences created inconvenience for her colleagues and managers and affected the service that they were able to provide to patients.  I have no doubt that, if she had made some effort to come to work regularly, her managers would have supported her and she would not have been dismissed.  While the complainant submitted medical certificates explaining the reasons for her absences, in the case of an employee who has a pattern of numerous absences for a variety of causes, the reason for the absence becomes irrelevant.  The problem is the intermittent nature of the absence, the unreliability and uncertainty that this generates and the effect that an example of poor attendance from a long-serving employee has on others.

While I know that the complainant had a lot on her plate in 2020, I find that the manager’s decision to dismiss her was not unreasonable and it is my view that most employers in similar circumstances would have done the same.

Was the Process Fair?

I have considered the process that ended with the dismissal of the complainant on August 31st 2020.  I am satisfied that she was treated fairly during the process, commencing with a verbal warning in December 2018.  At all times, she was given the opportunity to be represented, and her shop steward and her union official provided a great deal of support and assistance.  She had a right to state her case and to appeal each warning.  She was offered access to the employee assistance programme and, from early on, she was informed that she would be dismissed if her attendance did not improve.  Finally, I am satisfied that the complainant’s appeal of the decision to dismiss her was given proper consideration by the hospital’s chief executive officer.

Conclusion

I have considered the case law submitted by Mr Dorda in support of his contention that the decision to dismiss the complainant was unfair.  Each case that ends in dismissal turns on its own facts and I have reached my conclusion here based on the evidence presented to me at the hearing.  I note the findings in the case of Samuel J Frizelle v New Ross Credit Union Limited (footnote 5), a precedent submitted by Mr Dorda in support of the complainant’s case.  Here, Mr Justice Flood held that, in reaching a decision to dismiss, “the decision of the deciding authority should be based on the balance of probabilities flowing from the factual evidence and in light of the explanation offered.”  The complainant’s explanation for her absence was compelling; however, the issue for her employer was that, despite warnings and support, she couldn’t be relied on to turn up for work.  I very much regret that the complainant wasn’t able to take control of her situation and stay in her job.  However, having examined all the circumstances, I am satisfied that, in accordance with section 6 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, there were substantial grounds justifying her dismissal.

I have concluded that the decision of the respondent to dismiss the complainant in this case was reasonable and I also find that the process was fair.  On this basis, I have decided that her complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act is not well founded.

Dismissal due to absenteeism