Department must pay €30,000 to visually impaired employee over ‘protracted’ discrimination The Department of Social Protection has been ordered to pay €30,000 to a visually impaired employee after a Workplace Relations Commission ruling found the department failed to provide reasonable accommodations for over a decade. The case centered on Paul Hill, an assistant principal officer who has worked at the department since 2012. Hill developed a visual impairment in his teens, resulting in significant light sensitivity, difficulty reading, eye strain, headaches, and fatigue. The tribunal heard that Hill required assistive technology including screen reader software, magnification tools such as ZoomText, and a touch screen to perform his duties effectively. Despite repeated requests to the department’s IT team, Hill was left using the same laptop from 2014 until September 2021. The equipment proved inadequate for running the necessary assistive software, which is processor-intensive and frequently caused the system to crash or freeze. Department lawyers claimed any issues stemmed from Hill changing settings or “incorrect usage by user,” but the tribunal rejected this argument. The Workplace Relations Commission determined that the department’s failure to provide reasonable accommodation from 2012 to 2024 constituted a breach of the Employment Equality Act 1998. Hill described feeling like a “nuisance,” a “troublemaker,” and “an inconvenience” for seeking the support he needed to perform his job. The prolonged lack of appropriate technology left him unable to participate in training, forced him to work weekends to complete tasks, and required him to take annual exit when he could not access his laptop. The ruling emphasized that Hill’s visual impairment qualifies as a disability under the Employment Equality Act 1998. The department has since been directed to pay compensation for the protracted discrimination and the resulting work-related stress that led Hill to return his laptop and take leave.
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