{"id":514872,"date":"2026-06-23T19:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/514872\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T19:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:59:13","slug":"witch-hunt-at-wrc-after-adjudicator-used-internal-data-in-his-employment-rights-claim-hearing-told-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/514872\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Witch hunt\u2019 at WRC after adjudicator used internal data in his employment rights claim, hearing told \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) official sparked off a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d after producing statistics in an equality claim suggesting he had more success mediating between workers and employers than three woman colleagues promoted ahead of him, his lawyer has said. <\/p>\n

The head of the WRC\u2019s mediation division has told a hearing she suspected a data breach because it doesn\u2019t routinely keep a tally of the success rates of its mediators. <\/p>\n

However, she said the figures were \u201c95 per cent\u201d accurate. <\/p>\n

Sylda Langford was giving evidence on Monday at a WRC hearing into complaints brought by WRC adjudicator Seamus Clinton under the Employment Equality Act 1998, the Protection of Employees (Provision of Information and Consultation) Act 2006, and the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 against the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment.<\/p>\n

Clinton and another adjudicator, Andrew Heavey, were among ten applicants \u2013 five men and five women \u2013 to apply for three senior posts as regional managers overseeing the WRC\u2019s conciliation and mediation services (CAMS) in October, 2024, the tribunal has heard.<\/p>\n

Only one of the men was shortlisted, and three women were ultimately appointed, according to data obtained by Clinton when he initiated an equality case. <\/p>\n

His claim is that he suffered less favourable treatment when he was not shortlisted for interview \u2013 and that that this may have been whistleblower penalisation, gender discrimination, or penalisation for acting as a staff representative in a campaign for a pay boost for adjudicators. <\/p>\n

While his case was at hearing, Clinton referred a further complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998 alleging that he was penalised for pursuing an equality claim when mediation work was withdrawn from him earlier this year. <\/p>\n

The State has said Clinton\u2019s access to a key mediation database had to be cut off to shield service users from a suspected data breach after his legal team included statistics drawn from a WRC mediation database in legal filings. <\/p>\n

The papers, filed the day before Clinton\u2019s case opened in public on 19th December last year, included percentage \u201csuccess rates\u201d at mediation in 2024 for the WRC adjudicators who had gone for the regional manager jobs. <\/p>\n

The tribunal heard that in these figures, a successful mediation was determined as one which had the status of \u201cresolved\u201d, meaning that there was an agreed outcome. <\/p>\n

Heavey \u2013 who told the WRC he put the figures together \u2013 had achieved agreed resolutions to employment disputes in 67 per cent and Clinton 59 per cent, according to the legal submission. <\/p>\n

Langford, the director of conciliation and mediation at the WRC, said she feared the figures quoted in Clinton\u2019s legal papers pointed to a data breach at the agency. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is not a metric we measure, whether a mediator successfully resolves a mediation. It\u2019s not a meaningful statistic for us … the primary objective of our services is to direct cases away from adjudication,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She confirmed that she wrote to Clinton revoking his access to a WRC database on 23 December 2025. This was an \u201cimmediate action to mitigate the data breach\u201d until she had an understanding of how it occurred, she said. <\/p>\n

She denied it was penalisation. She said Clinton\u2019s database access was restored on 23rd January 2026. <\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s barrister, Michael Kinsley, put it to her that it wasn\u2019t until April 2026 that his client was assigned to mediation work again. <\/p>\n

Ms Langford said there had been no mediation referral to Clinton\u2019s office in Carlow until February and that this had been assigned to the other official in the office. <\/p>\n

Kinsley pointed out that Clinton could also handle online mediation work. <\/p>\n

Ms Langford said her admin team was responsible for scheduling and all officials doing mediation \u201cgo into the mix\u201d for those, with full-time mediators having priority. <\/p>\n

Heavey said: \u201cWhen I went into the [database] page that showed everything, all I had to do was count what was there.\u201d <\/p>\n

In cross-examination counsel for the State, Stephen Hanaphy , put it to Heavey that the percentages \u201cweren\u2019t available\u201d to the interview panel.<\/p>\n

Heavey replied: \u201cOf course they were, they were available to everyone. Come 2025, they weren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kinsley said that by not producing any witnesses who sat on the interview panel, the State faced an \u201cinsurmountable\u201d obstacle in its defence. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a witch hunt, it was a method by which Clinton was going to be retaliated against,\u201d counsel said of the actions of the WRC in relation to the statistics. <\/p>\n

Hanaphy said it seemed to be \u201ca pretty short hunt\u201d as the database access had been cut off for just one calendar month spanning Christmas. <\/p>\n

The presiding adjudicator, Brian Dalton, has concluded the hearings and will give his decision in due course. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) official sparked off a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d after producing statistics in an equality claim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,6465],"class_list":["post-514872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514872","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=514872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514872\/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=514872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}