Labour Court upholds decision in Michael Hughes child abuse reporting appeal

The Labour Court upheld the decision that Michael Hughes’s complaint against Scoil Aine Naofa was not well founded. Hughes, a special needs assistant, said he was dismissed for making a protected report about child abuse. The determination was dated 8 August 2023. Hughes accepted that he had not reported his concerns to an appropriate person under the Protection of Persons Reporting Child Abuse Act. He had raised them with the school principal, who passed them to Tusla. The Act protects employees from penalisation for reports to a designated officer appointed by Tusla or the HSE, or to a Garda member. The Court said it could not consider a claim under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 because Hughes had not made a complaint under that law to the WRC. Whether his reports played a part in his dismissal was being considered in a separate Unfair Dismissals Act case.