A man who says he was asked if he was willing to cut his hair for a job at a local business organisation while he was out of work has accused it of discriminating against him on gender grounds in relation to access to employment.
However, the chairman of the Erris Chamber of Commerce told the Workplace Relations Commission he was only trying to warn the claimant about the prospect that he would “probably end up with no hair” from the job.
James Monaghan of Béal an Mhuirthead, Co Mayo, has accused the Chamber of Commerce of breaches of the Employment Equality Act 1998 in respect of access to employment in a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission.
Mr Monaghan has accused the Co Mayo business group of discriminating against him on the grounds of “age, nationality and gender expression” last April, when he met with the local business group’s chairman, Brian Bakeberg, about a job vacancy.
Mr Monaghan told the tribunal he was “asked a number of inappropriate and discriminatory questions” when they met at the Chamber of Commerce’s office in Béal an Mhuirthead in April 2025.
Mr Bakeberg, he said, put questions to him about his national background and accent, his age, and about his alcohol and smoking habits – questions he regarded as inappropriate in the context of a job interview.
He said the chairman also told him of “a condition to cut my hair, as a condition of employment”.
“Since then, the respondent has denied the interview took place,” he told adjudication officer Conor Stokes. Mr Monaghan said he had submitted correspondence with Intreo setting up an interview for the position in support of his complaint.
Alleged money sought
Mr Bakeberg, the sole representative of the respondent at hearing, said a job interview would have required three members of the chamber’s committee to be present. “It was a discussion, not an interview,” he said.
He said he had been on his way to the airport at the time and agreed to stop by the office to meet Mr Monaghan for a “quick chat”.
A few days later, Mr Bakeberg said, Mr Monaghan made contact with him, “voiced his concerns” about their conversation – and then allegedly told the witness that if he was to “pay him €2,000… this whole thing will go away.”
“I didn’t reply. I was on holiday,” Mr Bakeberg said.
Cross-questioning Mr Bakeberg, Mr Monaghan asked why the witness had asked “whether I would be willing to cut my hair for a hypothetical job?”
“It was around the context of me having no hair and if he ever got a job here, he would probably end up with no hair, that’s why I commented to him that he would probably want to cut his hair,” the witness said.
“But there was never any jokes about hair falling out. The question about my hair was actually framed as a gender question. He specifically asked, ‘man to man’ if I’d be ‘willing to cut my hair for the job’. There was absolutely no reference to alopecia whatsoever,” he said.
‘A lot of alcohol’
Addressing the other matters complained of by Mr Monaghan in his evidence, Mr Bakeberg said he asked Mr Monaghan’s age and how long he had been on jobseekers allowance to see whether he was likely to qualify for a community employment scheme post.
Alcohol only came up because “the candidate would do a lot of events; and during the course of events, there would be a lot of alcohol served,” the witness said.
“If alcohol’s not an issue that wouldn’t be a problem; and we were laughing about alcohol consumption,” Mr Bakeberg said.
“I never asked him if he was Irish directly. He sounded American to me. While we were chatting, I said: ‘You sound American; have you travelled overseas?’ I presumed he had to be Irish because he was applying as a CE scheme. He said ‘No, I’m from all over the world’,” Mr Bakeberg said.
Mr Bakeberg added that he discussed family with Mr Monaghan because he knew the claimant’s mother.
Adjudicator Conor Stokes closed the hearing on Wednesday and said he would write his decision in the coming weeks.
