Workplace Relations Commission (WRC)<\/a>. <\/p>\nLowney argued that \u201cextreme working conditions\u201d caused a serious deterioration in her health and she suffered with a \u201cmajor depressive disorder\u201d, the symptoms of which included \u201cpoor judgment\u201d.<\/p>\n
She had agreed to repay the money in full, her legal team said. <\/p>\n
Her position was that she was denied her basic rights in a \u201chostile, procedurally unfair investigation\u201d in which \u201cunverified allegations\u201d against her were \u201cimproperly escalated\u201d. <\/p>\n
Giving evidence last year, a vice-president at the firm, Ronald Reimer, said he was asked to look into alleged \u201cmisuse of the company credit card at the Cork site\u201d and sought records from Lowney ahead of a site visit in June 2024. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese were not provided in full,\u201d he said. Records were later produced in the form of an Excel spreadsheet \u201crather than the original statements\u201d and there were \u201canomalies in formatting and content\u201d, he said. <\/p>\n
There were \u201ctransactions with retailers such as Brown Thomas, Scarlett, Pamela Scott and Camera World which did not appear to be business related\u201d, he said in his evidence. <\/p>\n
The \u201cirregular expenditure\u201d was estimated at first to amount to \u20ac35,000, but it was ultimately established that the figure involved was \u20ac152,000 in a review period from September 2018 to summer 2024, Reimer said. <\/p>\n
The company\u2019s HR manager, Andrew Dalton, told the tribunal that the company had made a formal statement to garda\u00ed about the alleged \u201ctheft of company property\u201d to the value of \u20ac152,000. <\/p>\n
Lowney told the WRC she was \u201croutinely required to work from 8am to midnight, seven days a week\u201d. <\/p>\n
She had a lack of trained support staff, she said, while the US-based parent company \u201cexerted significant pressure without regard for the excessive hours she was working\u201d. <\/p>\n
These \u201cextreme working conditions\u201d caused a serious deterioration in her health, Lowney told the tribunal. <\/p>\n
A psychiatrist, Dr Sanchez Capocino Vicens, told the tribunal that in his opinion Lowney had a \u201cmajor depressive disorder\u201d, the symptoms of which included \u201cpoor judgment\u201d. <\/p>\n
The tribunal heard Lowney was suspended, but the investigation did not progress further after the claimant went absent on sick leave in July 2024. <\/p>\n
Her stance was that \u201cunverified allegations were improperly escalated in breach of disciplinary procedures and followed by a hostile, procedurally unfair investigation that denied her basic rights, evidencing a complete lack of fair process\u201d, the tribunal noted. <\/p>\n
Lowney\u2019s evidence was: \u201cI did not go through that process. I did not think it would be worthwhile doing it. I wasn\u2019t feeling well.\u201d<\/p>\n
She resigned on August 10th, 2024, and filed a complaint alleging constructive dismissal later that month. <\/p>\n
In her decision, adjudication officer \u00dana Glazier-Farmer found there was \u201cnothing to suggest that the complainant was not afforded fair procedures\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe mere commencement of a workplace investigation does not, of itself, constitute reasonable grounds to ground a complaint of constructive dismissal,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The first time Lowney raised any concern about her hours of work or work-related stress seemed to be in her complaint form after she quit, Glazier-Farmer said. <\/p>\n
She said Lowney had failed to make out a case that her contract of employment had been breached such that a constructive dismissal had occurred and rejected her complaint. <\/p>\n
Ed Shanahan appeared for the complainant, while the Irish Business and Employers\u2019 Confederation (Ibec) represented the company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An accountant at a multinational firm who was discovered to have incurred \u20ac152,000 in \u201cirregular expenditure\u201d on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[34320,72,46,61,60,1962,6465],"class_list":{"0":"post-329145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-brown-thomas","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-cork","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-work","14":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}