“It’s nothing to do with the pregnancy — the role is being made redundant.” Sometimes that sentence is true, and this page says so honestly. But redundancy is also the most respectable-sounding wrapper a pregnancy dismissal can wear — which is why equality law scrutinises pregnancy-adjacent redundancies with particular care, why the burden of proving the selection untainted sits with the employer once your timeline raises the question, and why the published decisions read like a field guide to contrivance.
Genuine vs Pretext: The Four Tests
Every case on this page comes down to four questions — and the documents answer them:
- The business case: real and documented before your announcement — or generated after it? Restructures that materialise weeks after a pregnancy disclosure carry their timing into the hearing room;
- The pool: rational — everyone doing comparable work — or drawn so only you could be selected? The pool of one is the decided cases’ most reliable red flag;
- The criteria: objective, applied on records, scored consistently — or invented late, unscored, unexplainable? “The role is gone” followed by the readvertisement under a new title is the classic exhibit;
- The process: consultation that actually included you — leave included: the employee unscored or unconsulted because she was on maternity leave converts a process defect into discrimination evidence.
Once the inference is raised, the employer must prove the pregnancy played no part in the redundancy or the selection — the shifted burden doing here exactly what it does across the whole cluster: making their paperwork answer your timeline.
Remedies — and the Cheque That Isn’t the Measure
A redundancy that fails the tests is a dismissal — automatically unfair, no service requirement, and discriminatory, with compensation to two years’ remuneration on the equality route. Which reframes the exit paperwork: statutory redundancy is the floor, never the measure of what a tainted selection is worth, waivers need proper independent advice to bind, and the 2024 rules void discrimination NDAs unless conditions are met — your employer funding the advice among them. Sign nothing first; the review is quick and employer-funded. And where the redundancy is the endgame of a longer cooling — excluded since the announcement, then “restructured” — the victimisation analysis and this cluster run together, which is precisely this practice’s home ground.
Time limits in these cases are short, strict, and depend on your exact circumstances — WRC complaints generally run on months, civil claims on years, and important extensions exist, particularly for survivors of abuse. Never assume you are out of time, and never assume you have time: take advice promptly. Nothing on this page is legal advice for your situation.
Selected - and the Timing Bothers You?
Bring the letters and the dates. One confidential call runs the four tests honestly in both directions - genuine gets called genuine, pretext gets a strategy - with the clocks mapped either way.
Call 01 5827148