The Waterford Intellectual Disability Association (WIDA) has been ordered to pay over 320,000 to a senior manager of the organisation.
By a considerable margin, this is the largest award ever made by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) under the Protected Disclosures Act, a framework which ensures that workers who raise concerns about wrongdoings in their workplace are protected from penalisation.
The complainant in this case, Ms. Fiona O’Neill, claimed that she was penalised after making protected disclosures against senior WIDA management.
WIDA is a community based voluntary provider of services for adults and children with intellectual disabilities and autism in Waterford. It is a registered charity, with a voluntary Board of Directors, and is fully funded by the HSE.
Ms. Fiona O’Neill, a senior employee of WIDA, gave detailed evidence of her experience working within the charity to the WRC, spanning over a period of four years, of what she described as “pure torture” inflicted on her by the former Chair of the WIDA Board.
On foot of this treatment, Ms. O'Neill made protected disclosures about alleged wrongdoing by senior management within WIDA.
Those disclosures concerned allegations of bullying, harassment, governance and financial issues which she viewed as wrongdoings by the Chairperson and/or members of the Board of Management.
In those circumstances, the Chair and or Board procured the services of a consulting firm to carry out an organisational review.
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