The Workplace Relations Commission ordered Active Retirement Ireland to pay Siobhan Hopkins €30,000 after finding her dismissal unfair and disproportionate. In a decision dated 22 November 2021, Adjudication Officer Marie Flynn found that the organisation’s disciplinary process was procedurally unfair and that dismissal was too severe a response.
Active Retirement Ireland said it dismissed Hopkins for gross misconduct after she viewed a colleague’s WhatsApp messages on an office computer. Hopkins accepted that her actions were inappropriate but said they did not warrant dismissal. The WRC found conflicts of interest in the disciplinary process: the CEO was related to the colleague, and the Operations and Finance Manager was involved in the incident and the process. It also found Hopkins was suspended without an explanation or a chance to respond, and that the disciplinary officer did not consider alternatives to dismissal.
The WRC also found that Hopkins had not made sufficient efforts to reduce her financial losses after dismissal, which it considered when setting the €30,000 redress. Her separate gender discrimination complaint failed. The WRC accepted she was treated differently from a male colleague when she was suspended, but found the difference was because he was related to the CEO, not because of gender.