Scientist with ‘debilitating' condition alleges discrimination by not being allowed work from home
A scientist living with 'debilitating' endometriosis has accused international medical devices firm Abbott of discriminating against her by refusing to let her work from home to ease a daily commute of nearly four hours.
The worker, who has over a decade of industry experience and advanced postgraduate qualifications, told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on Tuesday she was given ten minutes to pick up her things and get off an Abbott site last autumn after being told she failed her probation.
She said she was reduced to 'crying all the way back' in a colleague's arms during the drive home.
Abbott Ireland Ltd is denying complaints of disability discrimination and discriminatory dismissal under the Employment Equality Act 1998 by the worker, Ms X, who has been afforded anonymity by the WRC.
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Ms X was hired by Abbott in spring 2024 and spent just short of six months working in an office at an Abbott site in a county town analysing test data, but was deemed to have failed her probation and was let go that autumn, the tribunal heard.
The company's representative, Fiona Egan of the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation (Ibec), submitted that Ms X failed her probation for 'conduct and performance' following a number of instances of lateness and uncertified absences from work.
It had 'nothing to do with her condition', she said.
Shaun Boylan BL, appearing for Ms X instructed by Sean Ormonde & Co Solicitors, said the firm's policy of refusing to allow probationary employees to work from home was 'implicitly discriminatory' against his client, as it put accommodations for her disability 'on hold for six months'.
Ms X said she had been diagnosed with stage two endometriosis in 2022, a condition affecting the female reproductive organs.
She said it causes her 'debilitating pain', accompanied by 'nausea, fainting and dizziness' which was at its worst during the 7-8 days of her period and required prescription-only codeine and opiate painkillers to manage.
The daily drive from Ms X's home to the Abbott site was 'coming up on a four-hour commute to work every day', adjudication officer Brian Dolan remarked during the hearing on Tuesday.
Ms X said she thought at first she should 'just endure' the commute. Her evidence was that she was 'promised in the interview that it would be a hybrid role' and that she had turned down roles elsewhere with a five-day-a-week on-site commitment because of that.
Ms X said her immediate team consisted of six or seven colleagues, but 'nobody' was in office five days a week, and 'most' were working from home.
On a date six weeks after she started, a 'very sudden' departmentwide meeting was called, at which she said a senior manager declared 'there would be no more work from home possible' at the site, barring the 'possibility' of one day a week.
Ms X said she was in 'excruciating pain' that day and found the message 'difficult to take'. She told the commission she went straight to her team leader 'in visible distress, with tears in my eyes' and proceeded to tell him she had endometriosis.
She said her team leader was 'empathetic' and 'supportive' at that stage and gave her an assurance that a 'one week in, one week out' work from home arrangement would be possible – but only once her probation was finished.
Making it in for an on-site team meeting at 9.30am meant setting out from home at 6.30am or 6.45am, Ms X said.
Over seven weeks before a probationary caution letter being issued in her final weeks on the job, Ms X was late eight times and absent without a medical cert on three occasions, leading to an occupational health referral.
She said a senior manager later told her: 'The company cannot offer more than one day work from home past your probation,' and urged her to find somewhere to live closer to the site.
The probation review continued into the following month, and concluded when her team leader called her into a conference room and read out a letter stating that her employment was being terminated, she said.
The only reason stated was: 'Your standard of performance has not met company expectations.'
'I asked why. [My team leader] said: 'Everything is in the letter,'' Ms X said.
After saying she could not continue with the meeting a company HR officer told her an outstanding pay matter could be handled by email and gave her 'ten minutes to leave, to grab [my] stuff and leave the premises'.
'Everyone was crying in the car,' she said. 'I hugged my colleague, in the car, and kept crying all the way back to Dublin,' she added.
The adjudicator, Mr Dolan, told Ms X he had the power to order her reinstatement as a remedy under the equality legislation if she was successful in the case. Ms X replied: 'I'd probably never come back to Abbott.'
The case has been adjourned to a later date, when three company witnesses, including Ms X's team leader and the senior manager are due to give evidence.
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Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
‘We're blasted out of it': Living under Dublin Airport's flight paths
The intrusion of flights from Dublin Airport , especially at night, has been undermining quality of life for John Harris, who lives 'under the flight path of the south runway', in the St Margaret's area of Co Dublin, since 1983. The days of when 'the planes were in the room with you' may be gone, but he knows the obvious health impacts have not gone away. And he fears that many more people living under the north runway flight path may soon have to endure similar disruptions – to sleep, in particular – if an imminent decision from An Coimisiún Pleanála eases night-time restrictions, as sought by Dublin Airport Authority. Harris's is 'the first house you hit going into the west' taking off from the south runway, which is the route taken by 70 per cent of flights because of prevailing winds. Dr Niamh Maher: 'I would never have chosen to live under a flight path.' Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times A 65-flight restriction was put in place between 11pm and 7am, with a limit of 13,000 flights annually, split between 9,100 in summer and 3,900 in winter, but there is a legal stay on this pending the planning authority's decision. READ MORE The bottom line, Harris says, is that there were 95 flights per night in May, concentrated into periods from 6am to 7am and 11pm to midnight. He and his wife Jacinta 'do not sleep very deeply'. They invariably go to bed during the day for a few hours. He is conscious of not getting enough REM sleep, which is important to wellbeing. After retiring in 2014, he did a medical exam in advance of a charity walk, which identified a blood pressure issue peaking in the early evening. 'I realised this was because I was turning up the volume on the television to counter airport noise,' he says. In 2019 Harris was able to enhance double glazing at his home which helped to reduce daytime noise, but night time is different; the couple invariably wake up at about 4.30am coinciding with 'US flights coming in'. They both have tinnitus, which may be linked to constant noise intrusions. John Harris near his house under the flight path of Dublin Airport's south runway in St Margaret's, Co Dublin. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times Their two grandchildren, aged eight and five, stay with them about once a month. 'They are very sensitive to the noise. We know it's there; it really frightens them, particularly if they're in the garden,' says Harris. Harris has been part of the Dublin Airport environmental working group since 2016, so is familiar with the issues. [ Dublin Airport noise could cause heart issues for nearly 17,000 people living nearby Opens in new window ] Medical consultant Dr Niamh Maher has young children and lives under the north runway flight path. She is struck by differences between planning restrictions, supposedly to protect people, and reality. Having been reassured by Fingal County Council, the family renovated, their house on the understanding that planes were never going to fly directly overhead, only to find themselves now in the highest noise category in St Margaret's, 'which is horrific'. And since the runway opened in 2022, rather that taking a straight path, planes are deviating in the face of westerly winds and turning sharply at low altitudes. Maher, who is a spokeswoman for St Margaret's The Ward Residents Group and whose children are aged six, four and one, is worried about adverse effects on her children's learning and about sleep deprivation, with its knock-on effects. 'With windows open, it feels like you are at the airport. It makes daily life intolerable,' she says. Her eldest two children attend Kilcoskan National School which is under the 'divergent flight path, [so] they're getting this all the time'. The children are affected from 7am when the north runway opens until it closes at 11pm, she says. She is worried about two additional hours' usage if the 'relevant action' application by DAA is granted. 'We chose to live in a rural part of Dublin. We're now blasted out of it with noise, and it has been going on for three years,' she says. She is critical of airport authorites' attitudes and of inadequate enforcement, adding: 'it makes you feel helpless'. [ Living near Dublin Airport: 'The noise, it's overwhelming ... we can't open the windows, it penetrates through the whole house' Opens in new window ] Maher says simplistic 'you should move house' suggestions, or dismissal of concerns, along the lines of, 'you're living close to an airport, what do you expect?' miss the point. 'I would never have chosen to live under a flight path,' she says. Maher believes lower-noise aircraft will not solve the issue on its own. Dublin Airport is the exception in wanting to increase night-time flights when all around Europe there is a massive campaign to reduce them because of risk to public health, she adds. 'That is way this is going.'
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Noise impacts on people living under Dublin Airport flight paths remain unaddressed by DAA, warns sleep expert
Proposed changes to Dublin Airport 's night-time operations, if approved, will bring significant health risks, particularly for people living under the flight path of its North Runway, that have not been adequately addressed by Dublin Airport Authority (DAA). That is the verdict of leading medical specialist on disrupted sleep, Dr John Garvey, director of the Sleep Laboratory at St Vincent's Hospital Dublin . A long-running dispute – centring on noise issues but also infrastructure development, regulatory interpretation and community impact relating to the airport – is about to come to a head as An Bord Pleanála (ABP) is due to give its final determination on night-time flights and noise levels. In reports submitted to ABP, Dr Garvey is highly critical of data supplied by the DAA, which runs the airport – notably on the likely impact of 'awakenings' caused by night flights. 'The changes proposed by the DAA ... are likely to harm health, especially in terms of sleep quality,' he concluded in a report submitted in November 2023, in response to a revised environmental impact assessment and a noise report by Prof Thomas Penzel which were submitted by the DAA. READ MORE The DAA applied in 2020 to ease restrictions on the North Runway even before it opened in August 2022. A flight arrives in to land at the North Runway at Dublin Airport on June 19th, 2025. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times [ Residents and Transport Minister signal `constructive' Dublin Airport talks Opens in new window ] 'The evidence [presented to ABP] clearly demonstrates the significant health risks posed by the proposed changes to Dublin Airport's operational hours. These risks are magnified in North Dublin, where elevated stroke incidence and cardiovascular vulnerability underscore the urgency of action,' Dr Garvey said in his most recent report on behalf of the St Margaret's The Ward Residents Group. Records show north Dublin already has a significantly higher stroke incidence rate compared to other European cities, he notes. Dr Garvey's submission followed a draft ABP decision last September on DAA's bid to alter planning restrictions which prevented the North Runway from being used for landings or take-offs between 11pm and 7am, and a 65-movement cap applying across the airport during the same time period. The board provisionally accepted DAA's bid to replace the cap on night-time aircraft movement with a noise quota system, but also introduced a movement limit of 13,000 flights per year, based on how such schemes operate in the UK. There is a High Court stay on this, pending a final decision. It also said the runway should be in use for take-offs and landings up to midnight only, and then for take-offs only between 6am and 8am. DAA had proposed using the North Runway from 6am to midnight and introducing a 'noise quota count system' from 11.30pm to 6am. It also committed to enhanced noise insulation grants for those most impacted. However, Dr Garvey said the absence of health impact data and detailed 'noise mapping' (indicating where noise from planes is concentrated) in the DAA's response to a request from ABP for further information 'highlights the inadequacy of the current approach'. Comprehensive mitigation measures informed by independent analysis and community needs were essential to safeguard public health, he said. 'A night-flight ban, coupled with movement caps and robust noise mitigation measures offers a proven strategy to balance economic and public health priorities.' iFrames are not supported on this page. Speaking to The Irish Times, Dr Garvey said the DAA addressed the issue of awakenings arising from air traffic movements at night across the Greater Dublin Area, but not in relation to specific areas in north Dublin – as would be carried out in other jurisdictions. In this case, it needed to be done in light of 'well-structured research' on increased vulnerability of people to stroke and other cardiovascular risks in the area, he said. He said he accepts research on sleep impacts in some cases show 'association' rather than more difficult-to-prove 'causation', but that there are unaddressed issues raised by residents and his analysis. In his first report, Dr Garvey detailed far-reaching consequences of sleep disruption and inadequate sleep including physical effects 'extending beyond the realm of mere physical fatigue', and on mental health – affecting children in particular. In particular, 'single noise events' such as an aircraft taking off can have pronounced effects on sleep quality and wellbeing. Recent data suggested night-time aircraft noise could trigger acute cardiovascular mortality; 'a heart attack, stroke, heart failure or cardiac arrhythmia', at exposures of 40-50 decibels (dB). An interim target of 55 dB lnight (a measure of the night time long-term average noise indicator used to assess sleep disturbance) applied in the airport's noise action plan 'is not a health-based limit value by itself and allows a continued risk of negative health effects', he concluded. The World Health Organisation recommends a target for traffic noise of less than 40dB lnight. A typical take-off of a Boeing 747 or Airbus 320 would generate at least 50dB – adjusted to human hearing. [ Dublin Airport operator launches noise information portal for residents Opens in new window ] Contrary to Prof Penzel's opinion, the probability of additional awakenings 'is an accepted and appropriate assessment tool', he said, as flights characterised by their intermittent and often unpredictable nature can disrupt sleep patterns, cause awakenings or alteration in sleep stages. A report by Bikerdike Allen Partners, also for the DAA, 'poorly presented the data on additional awakenings associated with the proposed changes and have misrepresented the population that will truly be affected by additional awakenings. The manner in which they have presented their data is unreferenced and not in keeping with European norms,' Dr Garvey wrote. Assuming that the affected population is uniformly healthy is unfounded, Dr Garvey submitted, with older people particularly vulnerable to lighter and fragmented sleep, predisposing them to awakenings and increased cardiovascular stress. There is a lot of commentary on economic impact but little focus on human 'health cost', he said. 'There is a duty on ABP to raise this issue. I'm highlighting this has relevance in this conversation.' Data on sleep disruptions late at night showed they could have a disproportionate effect, he said. The one hour's additional flexibility being sought by the DAA could hinder the process of falling asleep. Dr Garvey accepted 'perception' arising that people's experience of disruptions may have a real objective impact on health and sleep. But he added in his first report: 'The DAA has contributed to a negative framing of the proposed changes by local residents. When the runway opened, flight paths adopted by planes leaving the airport did not comply with the flight plans that had been submitted and environmentally assessed when planning was granted for the runway.' Residents who had a reference point of no airport noise and no expectation of it affecting them 'might have initially likely framed their living environment as peaceful'. This perception shift 'has probably amplified some residents' sense of loss and annoyance', leading to mistrust between the DAA and local communities which, once present, can be almost impossible to remedy, he found. Residents contend the DAA has shown bad faith in what they call ignoring conditions of the original grant of permission. Dr Garvey said actions are urgently needed to minimise disruptions and associated health risks, including retaining a 13,000 movement cap backed by comprehensive noise mapping of areas where people are experiencing additional awakenings to align with international standards. He called for targeted health surveillance of high-risk populations including older people and those with chronic illnesses, with close monitoring for long-term effects of noise exposure. DAA is extending grants for affected residents, but mitigation measures such as soundproofing of schools and bedrooms are impractical and potentially counterproductive as they raise issues about indoor air quality, Dr Garvey said. 'Soundproofed bedrooms face issues of increased humidity, poor air circulation and rising indoor temperatures, all of which detrimentally affect sleep quality and overall health.' Implementation of a night-flight ban would significantly reduce sleep disruptions and protect vulnerable populations, he said. Such bans are increasingly applied to major international airports such as Frankfurt, Sydney and Zurich – and in this case will 'yield substantial public health benefits for the North Dublin region'. A DAA spokesman said that 'given a final planning decision on night-time flights is understood to be imminent, it would be inappropriate for DAA to comment directly on the submissions of a third party'. The spokesman said ABP's review of the noise regulator's 2022 decision about appropriate noise mitigations and runway operations at Dublin Airport included three separate public consultations. He cited the comment of DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs when announcing a new noise information portal for the local community in April: 'We know that airport operations impact the community around us and we take that seriously. We have to strike a balance between operating a major international airport and ensuring Ireland has the connectivity it needs with the needs of those living close to the airport. That's always going to be difficult, but we are constantly working to minimise the impact and listen to community feedback.' Before the North Runway's opening, aircraft used to fly over heavily populated areas of Dublin city, he noted, adding that data from the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority found a significant reduction in people significantly impacted by noise between 2019 and 2023. 'Specifically, there was a 38 per cent reduction, which translates to 44,350 fewer people affected,' he added. 'Key factors driving this ... include fewer homes being overflown, more modern and quieter aircraft, and adoption of noise mitigation measures by DAA.' The authority has spent more than €20 million to date on noise mitigation, including insulation schemes and purchasing eligible local homes, the spokesman said. The announcement in January of an additional grant scheme meant up to 400 more homes would be offered a €30,000 grant for insulation. The spokesman highlighted research conducted by Red C for DAA which revealed strong local support for Dublin Airport, with 86 per cent of Fingal residents supporting further development of the airport to allow it to grow, while 'two in every three residents view Dublin Airport as a trustworthy neighbour'.
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
Privatisation of AIB
Sir, – The privatisation of AIB has been greeted in many quarters as a celebration. In fact, it should be regarded as history repeating itself as a potential tragedy. It is welcome AIB management admits its 'profound regrets the bank had to be rescued by the State' and admits that 'it owes a great debt of gratitude to the taxpayer' for the vast support given to the then largest indigenous private sector firm in Ireland. Diarmaid Ferriter reminds us that 'The Irish banking management culture was reprehensible in relation to customer charges, interest rates, facilitation of tax evasion and calamitous risk taking.' (' How can we stop corporate gombeen men running amok again? Credit unions could be the answer ,' June 20th). Banking is similar to a utility like water, the roads, electricity and gas lines. Banking is too important to hand back a dominant company to a small group of self-interested, self-supporting private individuals. READ MORE SMEs and individuals will suffer. History will repeat itself. – Yours, etc, PAUL SWEENEY, Milltown, Dublin 6.
