Captain gets €824k for missing promotion

A female army captain excluded from a promotions process for the position of commandant due to being on maternity leave has been awarded €824,794 damages by a High Court judge.

Mr Justice Robert Eagar, who previously held Captain Diane Byrne’s exclusion was in breach of equality implementation requirements of a European directive, this week assessed damages against the minister for defence and State in that sum.

It must have been reasonably foreseeable Ms Byrne would leave the Defence Forces as a result of this discrimination and she was entitled to the damages for loss of earnings, he said.