If you are reading this page, something has probably already happened — and you may be doing what most people do first: wondering whether it “counts”, and whether saying so is worth what it might cost. Both questions deserve straight answers. The legal definition is broader than most workplaces behave as if it is; the routes are more within your control than the fear suggests; and every step on this page remains your choice, at your pace.
What the Law Protects Against
The Employment Equality Acts define sexual harassment as unwanted conduct of a sexual nature — verbal, non-verbal, physical or digital — that violates dignity and creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. One serious incident can be enough. The conduct can come from managers, colleagues, or clients and customers your employer failed to protect you from. And your employer’s only defence is reasonably practicable prevention — real policies, real training, complaints really handled — measured against the IHREC Code of Practice, which is admissible in evidence. Punishing you for complaining is a separate wrong again: victimisation, actionable in its own right (the retaliation practice).
Your Routes — All of Them Yours to Choose
- The internal complaint: sometimes right, never mandatory before other routes — and its handling becomes evidence either way;
- The WRC claim: the statutory route, generally within six months of the last act (extendable to twelve for reasonable cause), with compensation up to the statutory ceiling of two years’ remuneration;
- Where the conduct was assault: the criminal and civil routes run in parallel with the employment ones — mapped with care at workplace sexual assault;
- Where staying became impossible: constructive dismissal, assessed honestly before any resignation;
- Any settlement conversation: on your terms — and since November 2024, harassment NDAs are void unless strict statutory conditions are met, including independent legal advice your employer pays for: the NDA rules.
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.
The Practical Spine
These cases are carried by contemporaneous records: notes with dates, messages preserved somewhere personal, names of anyone who saw or was told, the complaint (if you make one) in writing, and its handling documented. Building that record commits you to nothing — it simply keeps every door open while you decide. And the first conversation with us works the same way: confidential from the moment you dial, useful whether or not anything follows, and ending exactly where you choose to leave it.
Wondering Whether It Counts?
That question deserves a real answer, confidentially, with no obligation attached. One call maps where you stand and every clock that applies.
Call 01 5827148