Further claims of harassment against curator
TWO more complaints of sexual harassment have been levelled against National Museum of Ireland curator Andrew Halpin.
He is already embroiled in a legal battle to return to work following his suspension over a separate alleged sexual harassment, a court has heard.
Mr Halpin, 57, has been accused by the museum of having ‘an obsession with tall women with long legs’ and had been ordered by the High Court to hand over his medical records as part of his case.
But he successfully appealed against that, and three appeal judges have now awarded him the costs of that successful pretrial challenge.
Judges Mary Irvine, Marie Baker and Isobel Kennedy ruled: ‘The costs have to follow the event.’
However, the three-judge court placed a stay on the museum having to pay those costs until Mr Halpin’s ongoing High Court action reaches a conclusion. Mr Halpin, the National Museum of Ireland’s Assistant Keeper of Irish Antiquities, launched that civil action against the museum in April 2017, having been suspended.
This followed media reports in February 2017 revealing that an unnamed National Museum of Ireland employee had been accused of sexual harassment.
Before that case reached a full hearing, Mr Halpin – who insists that his suspension is ‘unwarranted and unlawful’ – objected to his bosses getting any access to his mental-health records.
The High Court had ruled in the museum’s favour, but Mr Halpin appealed against that decision and won in the Court of Appeal last month.
At a hearing this week to decide the costs of that interim victory for Mr Halpin, Oisín Quinn SC, for the museum, told the Court of Appeal that there is a further lawsuit taken by Mr Halpin coming down the tracks.
Mr Halpin lodged those further proceedings against the National Museum in 2018.
That case is yet to be heard in full. Mr Quinn revealed: ‘Since this suspension, there have been two further complaints of sexual harassment by two other former employees of the museum.
‘Ultimately, the plaintiff [Mr Halpin] is seeking to return to work.
‘The other [2018] case is before Judge [Leonie] Reynolds in the [High Court] chancery list [to be heard at a later date].
‘The plaintiff is seeking to challenge that suspension, which also potentially precludes him from returning to work.’
Mr Halpin, of Yellowmeadows Avenue, Clondalkin, Dublin, has been the subject of sexual harassment complaints from female colleagues at the museum dating back to 2006.
In 2006, an internal inquiry found Mr Halpin guilty of sexual
‘Obsessed with long legged women’
harassment, the Court of Appeal previously heard. As a result, he was penalised with a loss of pay increments – and was required to undergo counselling, it was heard.
Then in 2016, he was the subject of an internal investigation into alleged sexual harassment of an intern.
This led to certain restrictions being placed on him, including that he was not to work alone with female colleagues.
Arising from claims that he had several hundred pictures of tall women on his work computer – none of which was pornographic – he was also to have limited internet access.
Mr Halpin’s latest lawsuit against his employer will come before the High Court later this month.
Mr Halpin is a curator at the museum’s antiquities section and a self-professed committed Christian who has served on the board of the Agape Ministries Ireland, an evangelist church mission that works with students. paul.caffrey@dailymail.ie