{"id":554320,"date":"2026-07-17T11:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T11:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/554320\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T11:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T11:56:10","slug":"royal-college-of-physicians-must-pay-e14500-after-admitting-unfair-sacking-of-woman-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/554320\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal College of Physicians must pay \u20ac14,500 after admitting unfair sacking of woman \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A single mother of three who said she had to pull her children out of their after-school activities last year after being unfairly sacked from her administration job at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland<\/a> (RCPI) has been awarded \u20ac14,500 for her time out of work. <\/p>\n

Monsurat Balogun, a project co-ordinator, was dismissed by the professional accreditation body for specialist doctors in March 2025 on the stated basis of \u201cserious performance failings\u201d.<\/p>\n

The RCPI\u2019s lawyers admitted at a hearing earlier this summer that Balogun\u2019s dismissal was unfair on procedural grounds. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll my friends in work, nobody was talking to me. All the people I thought I had, I didn\u2019t have anyone,\u201d Balogun said. <\/p>\n

Balogun said that after her sacking she was left \u201chaving to explain to my kids having to pull them out of their after-school activities\u201d because \u201cI couldn\u2019t afford it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Balogun said she had difficulty finding work in the same field as she felt she could not approach her former employer for a reference. <\/p>\n

\u201cI completely changed my speciality in my career because of the way everything went down, and I could no longer do what I loved to do, so I had to do something else to feed the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balogun said she found it difficult to \u201cget back into work, the space of work\u201d following the dismissal. \u201cI have to second-guess myself because of what they did to me. A year after that, you\u2019re coming to me to say I was unfairly dismissed?\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

Adjudication officer Penelope McGrath said: \u201cI have a general idea there was a workplace problem, and the complainant was found wanting and was dismissed, but the employer is now acknowledging that was an unfair dismissal.\u201d <\/p>\n

The adjudicator characterised the RCPI position as: \u201cYeah, hands up, it was a bad process,\u201d and added: \u201cYou\u2019re not saying we shouldn\u2019t have dismissed her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Jason Murray, for the respondent, said. He said that after taking legal advice, the employer had arrived at the view that there were procedural issues with the dismissal. <\/p>\n

Under cross-examination by Murray, who was instructed by Jennifer Cashman of RDJ Solicitors on behalf of the respondent, Balogun set out that she had applied for nine vacancies between July and September 2025 in various administrative customer support and events management roles. <\/p>\n

When she said she had difficulty finding work again in the same field without a reference, Murray put it to her she had not sought one from her ex-employer. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not fun for me. I was unfairly dismissed. How do you think I feel going to the HR manager to ask for a reference. Who is going to give me the reference?\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Balogun said she had then completed training, including a work placement, and had secured the required certification to return to her former career as a healthcare assistant. She expected to find new work paying \u20ac25,000-\u20ac30,000 a year, she said. <\/p>\n

In a decision published on Thursday, the adjudicator, McGrath, recorded that a disciplinary process took place and \u201cserious performance failings\u201d were identified on Balogun\u2019s part. <\/p>\n

McGrath found Balogun had made \u201cpositive efforts to find employment\u201d from April to September 2025. <\/p>\n

Murray had argued any redress ought to be capped at four weeks\u2019 pay in compensation as he said Balogun had \u201cnot complied with her obligations pursuant to the Unfair Dismissals Act\u201d to make efforts to seek new work when holding a former employer liable. <\/p>\n

He cited long-standing case law setting out a duty on a claimant in an unfair dismissal case to \u201cemploy a reasonable amount of time each weekday in seeking work\u201d in this regard. <\/p>\n

McGrath wrote: \u201cThere is no clear definition of what is meant by \u2018seeking work\u2019 in this context, though it has often been suggested to me that it means applying for jobs.\u201d <\/p>\n

While this was \u201cpart of the expectation\u201d, it also meant \u201cmaking inquiries of friends or contacts\u201d and \u201cchasing up other leads\u201d. <\/p>\n

She concluded Balogun was \u201cnot resting on her laurels\u201d. <\/p>\n

The worker\u2019s unemployment was \u201cfront and centre\u201d in her mind even though her home life had been \u201cthrown into disarray\u201d because she couldn\u2019t pay for a childminder, McGrath wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe complainant has made some difficult choices and should be commended for the decisions she has made,\u201d McGrath wrote. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A single mother of three who said she had to pull her children out of their after-school activities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60,143368,1962],"class_list":["post-554320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-royal-college-of-physicians-of-ireland","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554320","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=554320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}