School fails in bid to overturn teacher’s €54k award

A two-teacher Catholic primary school has failed in its bid to have a €54,000 compensation award made to one of its own teachers overturned.

Earlier this year, the Equality Tribunal made the award on the grounds that the female vice-principal was discriminated against on age, religion, and sexual orientation, for a principal’s post after finding that a nun on the interview board asked her “what about the homos?”

The school appealed the decision to the Labour Court, which has dismissed the appeal on two of the three grounds and reaffirmed the €54,000 compensation award.

However, the Labour Court found that on the balance of probability the nun on the interview panel did not ask the applicant “what about the homos?” during the controversial interview.

Earlier this year, the equality officer in the case found that the nun, ‘Sr C’, had asked the question in the context of the Forum of Pluralism and Patronage, established to reduce the dominance of the Catholic Church on primary education. The equality officer made the finding in spite of denials that the question was asked, by Sr C and two other interview panel members.

In evidence at the Labour Court, the teacher said she was ‘floored’ when asked the question. She stated she did not know how she was supposed to answer it. She thought the question was about homosexual teachers, not children, and in reply said “they’re already there”.

However, in its findings, the Labour Court recorded that Sr C strenuously denied having uttered those words and her evidence was corroborated by the other members of the selection panel who gave evidence.

The court found that the teacher’s evidence was “uncorroborated”.

It found that even if such a question was asked, it could not imply discrimination against the complainant on grounds of her sexual orientation as she is not homosexual.

The teacher had eight years’ experience as deputy principal at the two-teacher school, had a masters degree, and was more experienced and better qualified than the successful candidate.