The operator of the Generator Hostel in Dublin has been ordered to hold staff training on equality law after a guest was who complained about being “intimidated” by a naked woman in her dorm room was denied an extended booking. Vanessa Corral had alleged at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) she suffered sexual harassment and victimisation in December 2024 as a guest of the hostel in a complaint under the Equal Status Act 2000 against Generator Properties Dublin Ltd. She told the tribunal that when she went to her shared dormitory at the hostel in Smithfield, Dublin 7, she “encountered a fully naked female guest standing inside the door”. “The woman did not react with any sign of modesty,” Corral told the tribunal. She said she was “shocked” and told the women her she was behaving inappropriately. The tribunal noted Corral’s evidence that she went into a bathroom to “gather herself” and came back out, only to find that the woman was still undressed. She again told the woman the situation was “inappropriate”, at which point the woman became angry, Corral told a hearing last year. The complainant said she felt “intimidated and threatened” and left. The receptionist at the hostel “dismissed” Corral’s concerns and told her the behaviour was “a cultural matter”, the complainant said. Will new pay transparency rules close the gender pay gap for good? Listen | 28:55Corral said she mentioned making a complaint to the WRC or to gardaí, she told the hearing. In response, the hostel receptionist “became aggressive” and told Corral she faced being removed from the premises if she did not go away from the desk, the complainant added. She was ultimately moved to another room, but the receptionist would not let her extend her stay. Corral said she felt that she had been “effectively banned from the hostel without justification”. “I believe that I have been victimised because I reported sexual harassment and upon seeing the staff not taking any action about it other than changing me to another room,” Corral wrote when she put the hostel operator on notice of her claim. “I was threatened with being kicked out the hostel and I was not allowed to renew my stay. I was told to go to my room or I would be kicked out, with the uttermost unempathetic and victim-blaming victimisation attitude possible,” she added. She cited race and gender as her protected grounds under equality law. Cillian McGovern, who appeared for the respondent instructed by Jason McMenamin of A & L Goodbody Solicitors argued Corral “acted unreasonably” in relation to the matter. He submitted that Corral “flatly rejected” two “reasonable options” to resolve the matter – either to have a member of staff go and speak to the woman, or move her to another room. He argued the claim ought to be dismissed as either frivolous or vexatious. Corral had stayed at the hostel 55 times, including five more times after the incident. During 11 of her stays there, Corral had made complaints and received a “complimentary upgrade”, he said. In her decision on the case, adjudicator Monica Brennan wrote that Corral had not identified anyone who was or might have been treated more favourably than she was, given the circumstances. She ruled the complainant had failed to provide evidence establishing an inference of discrimination, meaning the discrimination complaint was “not well founded”. However, Brennan noted that Corral’s contention that she was refused an extension of her booking was backed up by an email written by the receptionist recounting his version of the events. She accepted Corral’s unopposed evidence that this was a “direct response” to opposing an alleged act of discrimination, an action shielded by the Equal Status Act. “For that reason, I find that the complainant was victimised within the meaning of the Act,” Brennan wrote. She made no award of compensation, on the basis that Corral had later thanked the hostel’s general manager for meeting her in response to the incident and went on to stay another two nights. Brennan ruled that the “most appropriate redress” was a compliance order. She directed the company to “take steps to ensure that all public-facing staff have undergone, or are scheduled to undergo, training on individuals’ rights under the Equal Status Acts”.