The Workplace Relations Commission awarded carpenter David Keegan €21,840 after finding he was penalised for raising a health and safety complaint with his employer. The decision, dated 31 March 2023, also awarded him €1,680 on each of two complaints about missing written employment terms.
The adjudicator found that Keegan's solicitor wrote to the employer's solicitor about a failure to provide a safe system of work and sufficient training. The employer dismissed Keegan the day after receiving that complaint, stopped his sick pay and failed to communicate with him, which the adjudicator found amounted to penalisation. The €21,840 award represented six months' remuneration.
A separate complaint about a January 2023 dismissal was not upheld: the adjudicator found it was not caused by the earlier health and safety complaint. The employer accepted that it had not given Keegan written core terms or a full statement of his terms, and the WRC ordered €1,680 for each breach. Keegan withdrew a separate complaint under the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015.