Claims of ageist pay discrimination at top levels of Prison Service dismissed

Three senior officials in the Irish Prison Service have failed in equality claims at the Workplace Relations Commission, alleging they faced age discrimination through unequal pay. The claimants—operations director Don Culliton, ICT and governance director Donna Creaven, and former acting director of HR Trevor Jordan—each sought salary increases of between €32,000 and €36,000 to match the €142,892 pay of former director of care and rehabilitation Fergal Black. Ms Creaven also claimed gender discrimination. The Prison Service maintained that Mr Black's higher salary reflected "red-circling"—retention of original contractual terms—dating from his 1993 appointment and preserved during the agency's 2007 decentralisation to Longford, when medical qualifications ceased to be mandatory. Adjudicator Breiffni O'Neill accepted the respondent's historical account and found the pay disparity objectively justified, rejecting all three complaints.