Traveller awarded €5,000 after slur at Christmas staff party

A TRAVELLER who was called “a knacker” at his workplace Christmas party has been awarded €5,000.

Francis Maguire, an ex-care attendant with the North Eastern Health Board (NEHB), said his employers had ignored his allegations of harassment at the party and had cut his working hours following his complaint.

He also claimed, at a hearing of the Equality Tribunal, that he was treated differently by both management and colleagues when they found out that he was a Traveller.

Mr Maguire started work with the NEHB on November 2001, as a care attendant in a temporary capacity in the services for the elderly, Drogheda.

Three weeks into the job, a fellow worker said she recognised him from school as a Traveller. He said after this, workplace attitudes towards him changed and he felt intimidated. In December, Mr Maguire handed out Christmas cards to his fellow workers and he attempted to give one to the Clinical Nurse Manager.

He said she refused it in a rude manner. She told him, he said, that there had been a complaint made against him, but when he asked what it was, he was told “forget about it”. Mr Maguire said the Clinical Nurse Manager also asked him to carry out tasks on his work break, something she didn’t ask of anyone else. On December 20, Mr Maguire went to the staff Christmas party in the Bridgeford Hotel. He said everything was going well until the end of the night, when the fellow worker he had known from school mentioned that she was having a party in her house after the function in the hotel and she was inviting all her fellow workers. He said he heard her say to them “the knacker is not coming”. Mr Maguire said when he asked her not to call him a knacker, her boyfriend kicked him to the ground and attacked him.

The next day, Mr Maguire told the matron that he would be unable to work as he had injured his finger and he explained about the incident at the party the night before. He asked her to intervene and to ask the female in question not to call him names, but the Matron stated that it had nothing to do with her. Mr Maguire said she then told him he was not suitable for the job, that he was slow and that his work would be cut back to two days a week.

On January 7, he was told by the Director of Nursing that his personality was not suitable for the job and that he was being let go.

The NEHB argued that they had only employed Mr Maguire as a relief attendant on an “if and when required basis”, and that management had received a number of complaints about his performance. However, the NEHB admitted that Mr Maguire had reported the Christmas party incident to them and they had not got involved, because it had taken place outside the workplace.

The equality officer found that the Christmas party was related to work because Mr Maguire would not have been at the function if he had not been employed by the NEHB.

She also found after making a complaint about the way he was treated, his working hours were cut and he was ultimately discharged. The NEHB was ordered to pay Mr Maguire €5,000.