A veteran oil refinery employee has failed in a claim for pay equality after a former male colleague, whom she said she “trained in”, ended up making €10,000 a year more than her.
Sinead Cotter, a contracts and procurement specialist at Irving Oil Whitegate Refinery Ltd, had sought €107,000 in a complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1977 alleging discrimination in pay on the grounds of gender and family status.
Cotter, an industrial chemist by profession, first joined the refinery in the year 2000 on a student placement in a laboratory at the facility in Co Cork – Ireland’s only oil refinery, supplying some 40 per cent of the market for petroleum products, the tribunal was told.
Over her 25 years, she rose in seniority, undertook legal training, and was already in a senior role in its contracts department when a contractor on the same team, Brendan Collins, was made staff in December 2019, the tribunal heard.
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Cotter “trained in” Collins, her solicitor said, and the contract specialist roles were effectively interchangeable, he argued.
The Canadian multinational Irving Oil bought out the refinery in 2016, the tribunal heard. In the following years, Cotter said, she was “managing 50 contracts and juggling a busy home life” – and hoped to advance from grade 13 to grade 14 in the company hierarchy.
Collins started as a contractor with the refinery in 2018 and became an employee in December 2019, with a contracted salary of €79,000, the tribunal recorded. Cotter’s pay in 2019 year was €88,109, including a bonus and health insurance.
Cotter said she didn’t apply for the vacancy filled by Collins, as she viewed it as a “sidestep”. She said it was “the same job as hers”, under the same job title: “Contract Specialist”.
However, she said she felt “angry” when she looked over Collins’ contract and saw that he had a more senior grading than her.
According to the adjudicator’s analysis, Collins’ pay as an employee overtook Cotter’s in 2021, when his earnings rose to €94,000 and a more modest pay bump for Cotter brought her total compensation to €87,000.
By the time she referred a WRC complaint in 2022, the pay disparity between them had increased to €10,000, it was submitted.
Collins, who was no longer working for the firm when he gave evidence last year, said: “Sinead and I had very similar job scopes and everyday tasks ... Our work scopes were identical for all intents and purposes.”
He said he and Cotter were “a tag team” and expressed the view that she could do all of his duties if required – to the point that he had “doubts on accepting tenure,” he said.
“If there were differences, they were not material,” he said.
Adrian Quill, the firm’s supply manager, said Cotter was not managing the same level of “commercial risk” as Collins.
Cotter, he said, was focused chiefly on managing catering and cleaning services with outside staff being brought in at hourly rates.
He contrasted these “care and maintenance” undertakings with the “larger industrial jobs” which Collins had been tasked with.
Cotter was responsible for a contract for security, catering and cleaning worth €1.2 million; €3 million worth of engineering contracts, and inspection and waste disposal contracts valued at €1 million each, her solicitor said.
The company said that in 2020 Collins handled contracts worth between €13 million and €14 million each in 2020, including tenders for refurbishment and construction work, mechanical services, electrical work, painting and industrial cleaning. His work drew on his skills as a qualified quantity surveyor, the company argued.
Rachel O’Flynn BL, appearing for the company instructed by JRAP O’Meara, argued there was a “clear distinction” between the two roles and that any difference in pay was down to “grounds unconnected with the complainant’s gender or family status”.
Adjudicator Patsy Doyle wrote in her decision: “I find that Mr Collins participated in larger scale projects to Ms Cotter.”
“I accept that they sat in same office and worked the same hours. However, I found a perpetual difference in the work,” she added.
Collins’ job was ranked a grade above Cotter’s “on skill and market forces”, with quantity surveying a “central component”, she added.
She rejected the complaint.
