Prison Service to pay €85k over discrimination

The Irish Prison Service has been ordered to pay a total of €85,000 in compensation after the Equality Tribunal ruled it had discriminated against three female staff in promotion competitions on grounds of gender.

Prison officer Anne Delaney was awarded €40,000 after being turned down for three separate promotions over a 10-year period as well as being discouraged from taking up a post by a prison’s deputy governor in one instance where she had been promoted.

The tribunal heard that Ms Delaney — who worked as a prison officer at the Midlands Prison, Portlaoise, during a 20-year career in the Prison Service — claimed she was never placed on the permanent roster for the post of assistant chief officer (ACO) despite being placed on the top of the panel to fill the role. As a result, Ms Delaney never received the accompanying allowance.

She told the tribunal that the deputy governor of the Midlands Prison in Aug 2010 had told her he had “too many female ACOs”.

The tribunal said such a comment constituted gender discrimination.

The deputy governor explained he was concerned that a situation could arise where an all-female staff complement could be on duty at a time an incident might occur.

However, the tribunal found that he provided no evidence to substantiate such a claim.

He was also unable to provide any corroborating evidence to his statement that female prison officers had expressed concern about working with an all-female staff complement.

Ms Delaney said the deputy governor had indicated she would be successful in her application for a post in the prison’s detail office if she stepped down from taking up the ACO role.

However, she was rejected for the position in Sept 2010.

Ms Delaney complained that she had also been overlooked in favour of two junior male officers when she applied for a gym instructor course in 2001.

Similarly, she was unsuccessful in applying for a post in the operational support group in Apr 2009 when the position was given to a junior male officer.

Equality Tribunal officer Orla Jones said the same senior personnel were in place throughout the period of complaints made by Ms Delaney.

Ms Jones said there was a common thread that no records were available of the selection process used in the various promotion competitions.

Ms Delaney also complained she was turned down for promotion to a post in the detail office in 2010 while working in the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise in a case which was also taken by two other female colleagues.

They complained that two junior male prison officers were successful even though the main criterion used in the selection process should have been seniority.

They claimed the normal criteria of “seniority with due regard to suitability” were not used in the prison’s decision to reject their application for promotion, even though such criteria were used in a similar competition held on the same day.

The Equality Tribunal said it was clear that the selection process used by the Prison Service was “wholly lacking in transparency”.

“It is difficult to know what process was followed,” said Ms Jones.

The tribunal said it was hard to believe why different criteria were used in two similar competitions on the same day.

It awarded Ms Delany €40,000 compensation in relation to being discriminated against on four different occasions.

Another prison officer at the Midlands Prison, Monica O’Sullivan Byrne was awarded €25,000 in relation to the competition for the detail office role at the Midlands Prison.

A third officer, Julie Madden, who also lost out in the same competition, was awarded €20,000 based on her salary and length of service at the time.

In another ruling, a Co Tipperary pre-school, Jella’s Tots in Nenagh, was ordered to pay €8,000 compensation for discriminating against a Traveller, Ann Pratt, under the Equal Status Act when an agreement to take her two children was rescinded.