Widow awarded €12,500 over Dunnes Stores discrimination

DUNNES Stores has been ordered to pay €12,500 to a widowed mother of six because its security staff asked her to return to a store after she bought a suitcase for a pilgrimage to Medjugorje.

In the discrimination case brought against the retail giant by Kathleen McDonagh, Workplace Relations Commission adjudication officer Seán Reilly found that the woman was discriminated against due to the fact that she was a Traveller.

Mr Reilly found that the actions of Dunnes Stores at its Market Square, Castlebar, store in Co. Mayo towards Mrs McDonagh on October 14, 2016, ‘were humiliating, offensive, insulting, demeaning and discriminatory and were based on her membership of the Travelling community’.

Mr Reilly found that after Mrs McDonagh had purchased the suitcase for her pilgrimage trip, she ‘was pursued out of the store up the public street, called after and she was confronted by a member of the Dunnes security staff in full view of the public and was informed that there was a problem with her’.

Mr Reilly said that Mrs McDonagh was asked to return to the store and was accompanied there by two members of the Dunnes Stores security staff.

Mr Reilly said that it was clear to him that all of the staff involved were fully aware that Mrs McDonagh was a member of the Travelling community.

He concluded: ‘I find that this was the main factor in their treatment of her, which would not have occurred with a member of the settled community’.