Gardaí in Cavan have confirmed they are investigating an alleged assault on a Ukrainian worker by her employer.
The assault is said to have taken place in the past month when the woman queried her pay.
The case of the 28-year-old, who had been working on a farm for more than two years, came to light when she was put in contact with Siptu's office in Cavan after leaving a hospital A&E department.
Gerry McCormack, Siptu's Cavan branch secretary, said yesterday the union was processing an unfair dismissal case against the farm in parallel with the Garda investigation and another by the Labour inspectorate.
He said the woman has alleged the assault happened when she queried her pay-slip, which was written on an envelope with no details about her hours worked or tax or PRSI deductions. The pay was €221 and she was asking why it was so low.
Mr McCormack said it is claimed that when the owner of the farm was challenged by the woman, he took the envelope from her, tore it up and threw it on the ground.
As she bent to pick it up, the farmer is alleged to have grabbed her by her jacket and hit her head on a desk and again on the wall.
Mr McCormack said he got a phone-call about the case and the woman came to him on her way back from A&E. He said her face was "all busted up".
According to the terms of her contract, he said the woman worked a 15-hour day. She began work at 6am with a final tea-break at 6.30pm. There were another two hours worked after that on a seven-day week basis.
She had got the job via an Irish recruitment agency advertising for workers in Ukraine.
The woman has returned to Ukraine but is due back in Ireland in the next week to pursue the unfair dismissal case and to help gardaí and the Labour inspectorate with their investigations.
Mr McCormack said there were other nationalities working on the farm but that those from EU accession states, such as Poland and Latvia, had left.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment said the Labour inspectorate was aware of the case but did not wish to comment on it.
