{"id":422297,"date":"2026-04-28T21:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/422297\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T21:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:46:11","slug":"case-against-womans-way-publisher-concerns-exploitation-of-women-in-media-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/422297\/","title":{"rendered":"Case against Woman\u2019s Way publisher concerns \u2018exploitation\u2019 of women in media \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Lawyers for a journalist who claims that she suffered multiple rights breaches while working in a \u201ckey role\u201d at Woman\u2019s Way publisher Harmonia have said the case concerns the \u201cexploitation\u201d of women in the media industry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Andrea Smith has accused Harmonia Ltd of breaching her rights under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 \u2013 along with seven other unspecified matters \u2013 in a complaint to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/workplace-relations-commission\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/workplace-relations-commission\/\">Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Little detail of the dispute was aired at a case management hearing on Tuesday, except that Smith said she was last paid by Harmonia in December 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The company, owned by well-known entrepreneur Norah Casey, told the case management hearing that Smith was not its employee, so the tribunal has no jurisdiction. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Lauren Tennyson, for the employer, said most of Smith\u2019s complaints were filed with the WRC more than six months after any alleged breaches and are therefore out of time and out of jurisdiction. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Smith\u2019s barrister, Patricia McKenna, said that for the sake of justice, her client wanted a ruling on the question of employment status. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image audio_image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1754647931518-c07d65db-55b5-463e-ae51-976300c5837e.jpeg\"\/>Kerry Group CEO on the impact of Middle East conflict, AI and drive to keep bread fresher for longer<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cOne way or the other, we want that to be adjudicated on, because our client was working in the magazine basically in a key role in it. She wasn\u2019t a so-called freelance journalist,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McKenna said the case concerned the \u201cexploitation\u201d of women in the media industry. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe\u2019re saying she was definitely not on contract as a freelance,\u201d McKenna added. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The question of whether or not some or all of the case could be decided on a preliminary basis was the subject of some legal discussion. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McKenna said there seemed to be dispute about the date of her client\u2019s alleged dismissal and other alleged contraventions of employment rights. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Adjudication officer Kara Turner told the parties she wanted them to enter into correspondence to see what facts and dates could be agreed upon. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The adjudicator gave the parties three weeks each to make legal submissions on whether she could come to a preliminary decision on the jurisdictional arguments. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She adjourned the matter pending that decision. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McKenna was instructed by Murphy O\u2019Grady Solicitors in the matter. Tennyson was instructed by Byrne Wallace LLP. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Turner also noted the attendance of Harmonia owner Norah Casey and her sister Carissa Casey at the hearing at Lansdowne House in Dublin on Tuesday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawyers for a journalist who claims that she suffered multiple rights breaches while working in a \u201ckey role\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,1962,6465],"class_list":["post-422297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-work","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422297","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=422297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}