Discrimination | Employee mocked over accent and labelled 'the protestant' by colleagues

An employee at a refugee centre in Ireland has won over £3000 in compensation after being mocked over having an English accent.

Chris Murray started working at Coolebridge, a company that controls direct provision centres and emergency accommodation facilities in Dublin, in July 2022 when he started to experience belittling and disparaging comments from other workers, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) heard.

He claims he was discriminated against on the grounds of race after colleagues consistently made fun of his English accent, called him names, and dubbed him “the Protestant”. This name-calling became a running joke amongst members of staff at the centre, who would repeatedly ask what he was doing in the largely Catholic area.

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Murray says he explained to colleagues that despite being an Irish national, he has an English accent because of his upbringing. He claims that because of this name calling, he feels his national identity was being denied and that another identity was being imposed on him by co-workers.