Permanent TSB worker awarded €45,000

A PERMANENT TSB worker has been awarded €45,000 at the Equality Tribunal for gender discrimination.

Cork-based programmer Mary Higgins took the case after she was denied an application to work part-time hours while her male colleague was allowed to work a four-day week. She was not given a reason for the decision in the bank’s letter of refusal in 2005. Both workers from the IT department had applied to the company under its alternative working pattern scheme .

The decision-making process for the scheme was described as “unfair and lacking transparency,” by tribunal equality officer Bernadette Traynor,

“The process operated to the advantage of a man in that the man was granted an alternative attendance pattern,” she said in a summary of the case.

The bank told the tribunal that work satisfaction and the work pattern chosen were the criteria used to make a decision in the case of a tie. Both employees appeared to satisfy these criteria but “as the male employee was selected for alternative working pattern something must have prompted his selection”, Ms Traynor said.

Ms Higgins was on maternity and parental leave for much of 2004 so there was no appraisal of her that year. But there was one for her male colleague, the tribunal heard. The pattern of attendance requested was not listed in the application criteria and was decided after applications had been received, Ms Traynor said. Ms Traynor described this as creating “a situation decidedly lacking in transparency and fairness”.