A CONTRACT cleaner who claims she lost her job because she reported an incident of elder abuse, staged a protest outside her former employer’s office this week. Lisa Barry claims she was effectively fired after reporting an alleged incident in which a staff member at a Limerick nursing home caught an 80-year old woman by the arm and threw her into a chair, as reported in the Limerick Post in May. The lone parent has not worked since she lost her job with the city-centre based Xcel Xecutive Cleaners Ltd. earlier this year.
“I was called in and told I was being suspended from the nursing home for the comfort of the client,” she told the Limerick Post.
Ms Barry contacted Employment Rights Officer, Frank McDonald, who said: “I told the company they couldn’t suspend her when she had done nothing wrong. Besides which, they had followed no procedure, no warnings of any kind. When I told them that the suspension was illegal, they said they had used the wrong words, that she was actually being laid off”.
The company offered a number of alternative hours but, “there was no way I could do them without getting childcare which I couldn’t afford and there were too few hours.”
Ms Barry and Mr McDonald asked the company to take part in an hearing with a rights commissioner, but they declined.
‘They are entitled to do that so we are considering gong to the Labour Court,” Mr McDonald said.
In the meantime, the laid-off worker says “I want justice. I’ve lost my job because I did the right thing and now I’m at the loss of my wages. I want people to know this has happened,” she said.
After the Limerick Post first printed her story in May, this newspaper was contacted by an officer of the National Employment Rights Authority, who was in turn put in contact with the whistleblower.
A spokesperson for the company said: “We are aware of Ms Barry’s claims, and are dealing with the matter through the appropriate mechanisms”.
Lisa Barry protesting outside Xcel Xecutive Cleaners Ltd, John’s Gate, with from left; Frank McDonnell, Limerck Resource Centre, her daughter Ali, partner Damion Mansfield and Cormac Ronan.
