Irish Prison Service Ordered to Find Position for Prison Officer within Three Months

In Kim Dempsey v Irish Prison Service (ADJ-00043513) the Complainant brought a complaint under section 77 of the Employment Equality Acts (as amended) against her employer Irish Prison Service, for failing to provide her with reasonable accommodation following a workplace incident that left her unable to carry out her regular duties.

Facts:

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent as a prison officer in 2008. In May 2017 while working for the Respondent, the Complainant suffered multiple injuries as a result of a serious assault by a prisoner. Since the incident the Complainant has suffered with chronic and ongoing back pain requiring her to undergo specialist treatment. She has been medically advised that she is not fit for manual duties and that she should return to work in an office-based capacity. The Complainant has not returned to work since this incident and has remained on sick leave since 2017.

It seems that while the Complainant was on sick leave, she obtained the qualifications for the role of Work Training Officer Integrated Sentence Management (“WTO”) and was later offered a position in Cloverhill prison but the Complainant submitted she was never permitted to start this role. The duties of the WTO were in dispute in the case.

In summary, the Respondent argued it was not possible to re-employ the Complainant as a WTO/Prison Officer, as all positions involved prisoner contact or the potential for prisoner contact in conflict type scenarios. The Complainant on the other hand argued the role of WTO is a primarily office based role albeit that in some understaffed prisons such as Cloverhill, some WTO’s do not perform the WTO role full time due to having to fill in for staff shortages elsewhere in the prison.

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