A single mother of three sacked from her admin job at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland has secured an admission that her dismissal was unfair after she was left out of work for more than a year.
Monsurat Balogun, a project co-ordinator, said that after her sacking in March 2025, she was left “having to explain to my kids having to pull them out of their afterschool activities” because “I couldn’t afford it”.
Her complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the professional accreditation body for specialist doctors, was heard at the Workplace Relations Commission yesterday.
Ms Balogun was dismissed from the €36,000-a-year job with one month’s notice on the stated basis of gross misconduct in March 2025, the tribunal heard.
No details of what misconduct was alleged against Ms Balogun was disclosed at the hearing, which was confined to the issue of compensation after the institution’s barrister said it was “going to concede the unfairness of the dismissal”.
“The respondent has received legal advice on its process and the respondent now has instructed that on foot of its legal advice: ‘Okay, yes, there’s issues, procedurally’,” Jason Murray BL, for the respondent, told the WRC.
Ms Balogun said she discovered she was dismissed when her computer showed a “system error” and she found she had been “immediately cut off” from the company’s systems – only then discovering a termination letter had gone to her personal email address.
The worker was given a five-day deadline to file an appeal of the dismissal to RCPI chief executive Audrey Houlihan, the tribunal heard. The complainant said she could not get the information she needed to pursue an internal appeal of the dismissal because of the system lockout.
“I was in shock, you know, I wasn’t myself,” she said. “The minute I was dismissed, everyone cut me off. Nobody talked to me,” she said.
Her focus switched to: “How am I going to pay my bills, how am I going to move on after this one month’s wages comes in,” she said.
Ms Balogun’s evidence was that in contrast to other departing colleagues, management at RCPI “cc’d everyone” at the institution on an email stating that she was no longer employed.
“I completely changed my speciality in my career because of the way everything went down, and I could no longer do what I loved to do, so I had to do something else to feed the kids,” she said.
Ms Balogun said she found it difficult to “get back into work, the space of work” following the dismissal.
“I have to second-guess myself because of what they did to me. A year after that, you’re coming to me to say I was unfairly dismissed?” she added.
Adjudication officer Penelope McGrath said: “I have a general idea there was a workplace problem, and the complainant was found wanting and was dismissed, but the employer is now acknowledging that was an unfair dismissal.”
“I think I am entitled to take into consideration the impact of that on the complainant in circumstances where the employer is now saying: ‘We were wrong’.”
“I don’t dispute that,” Mr Murray said.
The adjudicator characterised the RCPI position as: “Yeah, hands up, it was a bad process,” and added: “You’re not saying we shouldn’t have dismissed her.”
“No,” Mr Murray said.
“And you’re certainly not saying you’re welcome back, you’re putting it up to her to make her case for compensation,” Ms McGrath said.
“The respondent has received legal advice on its process and the respondent now has instructed that, on foot of its advice: ‘Okay, yes, there’s issues, procedurally’,” Mr Murray said.
Under cross-examination by Mr Murray, who was instructed by Jennifer Cashman of RDJ Solicitors on behalf of the respondent, Ms Balogun set out that she had applied for nine vacancies between July and September 2025 in various administrative customer support, and events management roles.
When she said she had difficulty finding work in the same field without a reference, Mr Murray put it to her she had not sought one from her ex-employer.
“This is not fun for me. I was unfairly dismissed. How do you think I feel going to the HR manager to ask for a reference. Who is going to give me the reference?” she said.
Ms Balogun said she had completed training to return to her former career as a healthcare assistant and expected to find new work paying €25,000-€30,000 a year.
Mr Murray said Ms Balogun had “not complied with her obligations pursuant to the Unfair Dismissals Act” to make efforts to seek new work when holding a former employer liable.
Any redress made by the WRC should be limited to four weeks’ pay in compensation, he submitted.
