Salon told to pay €2,000

An eyelash and eyebrow specialist salon to a string of celebrities such as Rosanna Davison has been ordered to pay a beautician €2,000 concerning her unfair dismissal.

The Greystones, Wicklow-based Up to My Eyes salon has done work for Davison, Pippa O’Connor, Alison Canavan, Roz Purcell, and Holly Carpenter.

Now, following an Employment Appeals Tribunal ruling, Up To My Eyes must pay €2,000 to Alana Miley after she was successful in an unfair dismissal action against the business.

Ms Miley was sacked in June 2012 after being accused by the Up To My Eyes owner of approaching a high-profile client through Twitter and providing free treatments to her mother, mother-in-law, and a friend in the salon.

Davison appears on the firm’s website wearing the company’s products.

Free treatments were not allowed at the salon. However, the owner, who is not named in the report of the two-day hearing, did agree that she had given a celebrity — identified only as ‘RD’ — a free treatment and RD advertised this treatment for the salon.

The owner told the tribunal that nobody, not even her own family and friends, got discounts.

She told the tribunal that a fellow businesswoman informed her someone at her salon was offering treatments at a discount and that the woman’s daughter had received a Facebook message from Ms Miley to that effect.

On the allegation that Ms Miley had tweeted a high-profile client and approached another concerning treatments, the owner — known only as E in the report — said that Ms Miley “should not have done this. She was not very pleased with the claimant [Ms Miley].”

E sought legal advice and decided to speak to Ms Miley.

E handed a letter to Ms Miley which stated she had been offering services and utilising facilities belonging to Up To My Eyes in an “unauthorised and inappropriate manner”.

Ms Miley was told to take two days’ paid leave and to attend a meeting on June 14, 2012. At the meeting, E said Ms Miley shrugged her shoulders when shown the Facebook message sent to the businesswoman’s daughter. Ms Miley said she saw her belongings were wrapped up and presumed she was being told to leave.

Under cross-examination, E said there was no alternative but to dismiss Ms Miley as there had been a complete breach of trust.

Ms Miley told E she did not offer free treatments and asked why she did not raise this issue previously.

Ms Miley — who has since opened her own eyelash/eyebrow bar — presumed the owner would look into the allegations, but the following day received an email confirming that she had been fired.

She stated that she never received a formal warning and did not use company products when doing treatments for her friends. Ms Miley confirmed doing the treatment for her friend free of charge as well as for her mother and mother-in-law.

The tribunal found that as Ms Miley “was not informed she was at risk of being terminated and was not given the opportunity to respond or consider two items of which the respondent placed reliance on in deciding to terminate her employment, the dismissal is unfair”.

However, it found that Ms Miley contributed to her dismissal “in a substantial way”.