Catering manager’s discrimination claim on basis he was a ‘white, Irish male’ dismissed

The Workplace Relations Commission has dismissed a claim by a catering manager that he was discriminated against by University Hospital Limerick over its handling of a grievance he had raised because he was a white, Irish male.

Cathal Russell claimed UHL had taken six weeks to formally reply to a grievance he had raised with the hospital, where it had dealt with a grievance by a non-national, female staff member within 48 hours.

Mr Russell complained that he had been discriminated against under the Employment Equality Act, 1998, on a number of grounds including gender and race.

The catering manager, who filed his claim of discrimination with the WRC in July 2021, worked at UHL for just over 4½ years up to January 2022 on an annual salary of approximately €65,000.

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UHL argued that Mr Russell had not filed his complaint to the WRC within the statutory six-month time limit.

However, the WRC said there were extenuating circumstances which would allow his claim to proceed to a hearing as Mr Russell claimed he had been sick for a period and was in the full front of the Covid-19 pandemic at the hospital when he returned to work.

He also maintained that his ability to access records relating to his case from his work computer had been hampered by a major cyber attack on the HSE’s IT system.

A representative of UHL acknowledged that there had been delays in excess of HSE policy guidelines in handling several grievances involving Mr Russell, including the one in question which took 38 days to conclude.

The WRC heard two other grievances involving the catering manager had taken 91 and 105 days respectively to finalise.

Pandemic

However, UHL claimed the delays occurred when the hospital was in the full brace of the Covid-19 pandemic and on the point of being overwhelmed on a daily basis.

It was pointed out that the HSE had shut down most of its human resources, industrial relations and grievance procedures between March and July 2020 in order to allow staff to focus on the clinical crisis facing the health service.

Although the hospital accepted there were delays in dealing with Mr Russell’s grievance, UHL said there was no way it could be argued they were due to either his male gender or his Irish nationality.

The hospital said there was no prima facie legal basis for his claim and little or no real evidence had been presented by the catering manager to show he had suffered discrimination.

UHL maintained the delays were largely due to the exceptional circumstances faced by all HSE personnel.

Dismissing the claim by Mr Russell, the WRC said it was impossible to ascertain where discrimination had actually taken place in terms of the catering manager having been treated less favourably than another on the grounds of gender or nationality.

WRC adjudication officer Michael McEntee said the hospital was in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis and UHL’s catering department was very much a frontline operation.

Mr McEntee noted the catering division had a large number of staff which considerably added to the difficulties of Mr Russell in his role as a catering manager.

However, he said the claim that Mr Russell had been discriminated against by UHL’s facility manager in favour of a non-national female was “not sustainable”.

“The evidence presented, which was limited enough, simply did not support this view,” he added.