The decision was handed down in the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on 3 March 2025 on a complaint made by Catherine Power (the “Complainant”) against her employer, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (the “Respondent”). The Complainant alleged that she had been discriminated against on the basis of her family status.
The Complainant was serving out her probation period in her new role as Higher Executive Officer. Covid-19 restrictions were still in place, so she was working entirely remotely. In February 2022, the Respondent determined that a phase one return to the office would commence, and two weeks’ notice were given that every member of staff must return to the office at least one day per week. The Complainant was of the view that this gave her a small window to secure childcare. The Respondent claimed that the return to office was clearly coming for months.
The Complainant eventually agreed to come in on 25th February. However, on 18th February, the Complainant’s husband injured himself, so she requested to work from home the entire week. After these interactions the Complainant claimed to notice an immediate impact on her relationship with the Respondent. She had her probation review two months later and was surprised to be informed that she had failed it.
The Complainant’s case was that she was suddenly treated differently by the Respondent as a result of her request to work from home which she said was inextricably linked to her family status. The evidence of the Respondent was that a hard deadline had been set for a return to the office of at least one day a week, with medical exceptions having to be signed off by the Chief Medical Officer.
There were also several performance matters referred to the by the Respondent which did not seem to appear in the probation documents and which the Complainant claimed were not brought up with her at the time of the review. The Respondent did accept that they may not have provided direct enough feedback during the review but stated they had previously raised a variety of performance issues to the Complainant which they maintained were the reasons for her failing her probation, one such issue being her resistance to feedback.
The WRC noted that the key issue was whether the probation decision was linked to the request to continue working remotely and discriminatory towards the family status of the Complainant. The WRC was satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the other issues concerning the Complainant’s performance resulted in the failed probation and not the request to work from home.
The WRC stated, for the avoidance of doubt, that if the burden of proof was on the Respondent to prove that the unfavourable probation review was unrelated to the request for remote working, the WRC was satisfied that there is sufficient evidence that they had met that burden.
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