News
Administrator wins case against nursing home
An administrator who was unfairly dismissed from her job at a County Galway nursing home has been awarded €55,000 in compensation.
The Employment Appeals Tribunal, following two hearings, ruled that Oranmore Nursing Home wrongly dismissed one of its employees, an administrator who had responsibility for payroll and finance. The hearings took place last year and the ruling was issued this week by the Labour Court.
In September 2012, a chartered accountant was hired by the nursing home on a consultancy basis to review the business, which was “struggling”.
During the review, the accountant found “irregularities” in relation to the claimant’s recorded hours of work and payments processed.
There were three systems in place for recording the hours worked, including a clock-in finger point system, a sign-in book and a roster system. He reviewed the system and investigated dates in 2012 and 2013.
After this process, the worker was issued with a letter on December 10 suspending her on full pay following the outcome of further investigation.
She was told of two issues: falsified timesheets on time-point system when she was absent from work and processed payroll to account for her being at work when she was on holidays.
The worker was asked to respond to the issues raised at a meeting on December 13. Further meetings took place in January and February, and she was dismissed for gross misconduct on February 19, 2014.
Patrick Keane, the owner, gave evidence the business was experiencing “serious financial problems”, which is why he hired the financial consultant, who brought concerns to him about the worker’s attendance at work and time sheets.
Mr Keane was of the view that all employees were required to clock in/sign in and clock out/sign out and he “found it incredible that the claimant had not done this as she was aware of the policy”. He met with the claimant and examined her written explanation as well as the evidence put forward by the consultant and decided to dismiss her.
The claimant, who lived in an apartment on site and was on-call as security for residents, had no disciplinary issues prior to receiving the December 10 letter. That day she was told of the investigation and was suspended.
She recalled how she had noticed some changes in work practices in early December including the removal of residents’ accounts from her responsibility. A notice appeared for all employees to clock in while previously the system was loosely observed, she said.
The system required the manual correcting of the clock-in system to provide for breaks and leave. The claimant was conscious that the system was open to error and had raised this as an issue but no changes were made. Her role involved manually entering hours on the system for all employees by using the rosters and time sheets. This information was then transferred to the payroll system. When entering times on the system the claimant was responsible for calculating and adjusting times taking into account breaks. This ensured employees were paid for the hours worked.
She said she never premeditated entering times on her clock when she was not in the workplace. She provided the nursing home with her own personal diary to support her case, and it hasn’t been returned.
In order to prove her attendance at work on the dates in dispute, the claimant requested that CCTV and cash receipt books could be checked but this was not done, the tribunal heard. When she attended the office to examine the books she established proof that she had made a lodgement on January 2 which was one of the dates she was accused of not attending work.
She said the appeal of her dismissal was not independent and the appeal officer was a personal friend of the owners.
The tribunal ruled that the nursing home had “failed to provide convincing evidence of the claimant’s non-attendance at work on the dates disputed.”
It ruled that the nursing home conceded at the hearing that she was in attendance at work on January 2 and 4, after she provided proof that she was in the workplace on those dates.
It expressed concern that minutes of meetings held with the worker were not taken and was “particularly concerned” that “no independent appeal was offered to the claimant initially although an appeal was eventually offered.”
It ruled she was unfairly dismissed and awarded €55,000 in compensation.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
