Dismissed After Raising a Grievance or Complaint

Being dismissed after raising a grievance is not, on its own, an automatically unfair dismissal in Ireland: raising a grievance is not one of the protected acts listed in the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977-2015. But every dismissal is presumed unfair under section 6(1), the employer must prove a ground under section 6(4), and where the dismissal follows a complaint, the timing is the evidence that the stated ground is not the real one. Some complaints carry their own statutory protection as well: a health and safety complaint, a protected disclosure, an equality complaint and the assertion of a statutory right each open a second route alongside the unfair dismissal claim. This guide explains how the timing case is built and which routes apply.

1. Is Raising a Grievance Protected?

Section 6(2) lists the grounds on which a dismissal is deemed unfair without more, including trade union membership or activities, making a protected disclosure, civil or criminal proceedings against the employer to which the employee is or will be a party or witness, and pregnancy and family leave. An ordinary grievance about pay, a roster, a manager or working conditions is not on the list. What the employee has instead is the general rule in section 6(1): the dismissal is deemed unfair unless the employer shows substantial grounds justifying it, and the only grounds available are those in section 6(4). The employer cannot say the grievance was the reason, because that is no ground at all, so it must say something else, and the case is about whether that something else is true. The full list of deemed-unfair grounds, and which of them waive the service requirement, is in automatically unfair dismissals in Ireland. The practice page on unfair dismissal claims explains how a claim is run from complaint to decision.

2. Dismissed After Raising a Grievance: Timing Is the Evidence

A dismissal that follows a grievance is proved by sequence. Two dates anchor the case: the date the complaint was made, in writing, and the date of the first adverse step that followed it. The adverse step is rarely the dismissal itself. It is more often a performance concern raised for the first time, a disciplinary investigation into something that had been tolerated for years, a suspension, a change of shift or duties, exclusion from meetings, or selection for redundancy. Set those dates against the record before the complaint: appraisals, pay rises, the absence of any warning. Then look at the employer’s explanation for why the concern arose when it did. Section 14(4) entitles you to request a written statement of the reasons for the dismissal, due within 14 days; request it by email on the day, because the reason the employer gives before it has taken advice is the reason it will be held to.

3. The Employer’s Stated Reason Tested Against Section 6(4)

The employer must bring the dismissal within one of the four grounds, and each ground carries its own evidential demands:

• Capability, competence or qualifications. A documented concern, a process in which the employee was told what was wrong and given the chance to improve, and evidence that the standard was applied before the complaint as well as after it.
• Conduct. An allegation put to the employee, an investigation, a hearing with the right to respond and to be represented, an impartial decision and an appeal, as the Code of Practice on Grievance and Disciplinary Procedures (S.I. 146/2000) requires. A conduct dismissal that skips those steps fails on procedure whatever the timing.
• Redundancy. A role that has genuinely gone, and a fair selection. Section 6(3) deems a redundancy dismissal unfair where the selection breached an agreed procedure or custom without special reason, or resulted wholly or mainly from a section 6(2) ground.
• Contravention of statute. Continued employment would have broken the law, which is rare and easily tested.

A reason that appears for the first time after the grievance, or a process that was started and finished faster than the handbook allows, is what the adjudication officer will weigh against the presumption of unfairness.

4. Grievance or Protected Disclosure? The Difference Matters

Whether the complaint was an ordinary grievance or a protected disclosure changes the whole case. A grievance is a complaint about the employee’s own treatment. A protected disclosure under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, as amended by the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Act 2022 which commenced on 1 January 2023, is a report of relevant wrongdoing of the kind the Act describes, and the label the employee or the employer put on it does not decide which it was. Where it was a protected disclosure, no service requirement applies; the burden shifts to the employer to show that the dismissal was not penalisation; the compensation cap is 260 weeks’ remuneration rather than 104; and interim relief may be sought in the Circuit Court within 21 days of the dismissal or other penalisation, or such longer period as the Court allows. That 21-day window runs from the day of the dismissal, so the question of which kind of complaint was made has to be answered immediately. The practice page on dismissal after a protected disclosure covers that route.

5. Health and Safety Complaints: Section 27 Penalisation

Where the grievance was about health and safety, section 27 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 prohibits penalisation of the employee for making it, and a dismissal or other adverse step that follows can be challenged under that Act as well as under the Unfair Dismissals Acts. A bullying complaint is in substance a complaint about health and safety at work, so the same route can apply where a bullying grievance was followed by a transfer, a disciplinary process or a dismissal rather than an investigation. Timing is the evidence in the same way. Where the employer’s response to a bullying complaint drove the employee to resign rather than dismissing them, the facts are covered in forced to resign because of bullying.

6. Equality Complaints: Victimisation Under the Employment Equality Acts

Where the grievance alleged discrimination on one of the nine grounds in the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2015, which are gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race and membership of the Traveller community, adverse treatment that follows the complaint can be challenged as victimisation under those Acts, and a dismissal on a discriminatory ground can be challenged as discriminatory dismissal. Neither claim has a service requirement. The same timeline of complaint and adverse step is the evidence. A grievance that asserted a statutory right, for example a complaint about pay under the National Minimum Wage Act 2000, is covered separately: section 6(2) deems a dismissal unfair where it results wholly or mainly from exercising rights under that Act, and section 6(2A) removes the service requirement for it.

7. Under One Year’s Service

The Unfair Dismissals Acts require one year’s continuous service under section 2(1)(a), and an ordinary grievance does not remove that requirement. Section 6(2A) removes it where the dismissal results from a protected disclosure, trade union membership or activity, pregnancy or related matters, availing of maternity, adoptive, paternity, parental, carer’s, parent’s or force majeure leave, or exercising rights under the National Minimum Wage Act. A victimisation or discriminatory dismissal claim under the Employment Equality Acts has no service requirement, and a section 27 claim under the 2005 Act stands on its own. Outside those routes, a referral to the Labour Court under section 20(1) of the Industrial Relations Act 1969 produces a non-binding recommendation, and any unpaid notice is recoverable under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts 1973-2005. The Dismissal Claim Route Finder works through these questions in order.

8. What to Gather

• The complaint itself, dated, with the acknowledgement and any outcome, and a note of what it was about: your own treatment, safety, wrongdoing or discrimination.
• Everything that followed, in date order: emails, meeting invitations, the first mention of a performance or conduct concern, the suspension letter, the redundancy notice.
• The record before the complaint: appraisals, pay reviews, commendations, and the absence of warnings.
• The dismissal letter and the section 14(4) statement, so the stated reason is fixed in the employer’s own words.
• The contract and handbook, which set the procedure the employer promised and the notice you were owed.
• Payslips and your job search record, which measure financial loss and mitigation if compensation is awarded.
• The dates: the section 1 date of dismissal, six months from it for the WRC complaint under section 8(2), and 21 days for interim relief if the complaint was a protected disclosure.

9. Redress, Deadlines and the Other Side

Where the dismissal is found unfair, section 7 allows reinstatement, re-engagement or compensation for financial loss attributable to the dismissal, up to 104 weeks’ remuneration, or 260 weeks where the dismissal resulted from a protected disclosure, with a four-week ceiling where there was no financial loss. There is nothing for stress or injury to feelings, the employee must mitigate by seeking work, and the WRC does not award costs. The complaint must be lodged within six months of the date of dismissal, extendable to twelve months only where reasonable cause prevented an earlier complaint, and waiting for an internal appeal is not reasonable cause. Employers who have dismissed an employee shortly after a complaint, or who are about to, get the same analysis from the other side: whether the ground stands on evidence that predates the complaint, and whether the procedure will withstand the timeline. We never act for both sides of the same dispute.