In the first case of its kind, a counter assistant in a restaurant has been awarded €6,000 in compensation after she was sacked from her job for being Irish.

In a ruling published last week, the Equality Tribunal agreed Lyndsey Glennon had been racially discriminated against by Carboni's restaurant in Tyrellstown in Dublin when they dismissed her and replaced her with a Chinese national.

Glennon told the tribunal she was hired by the restaurant as a counter assistant because, being Irish and a native English speaker, she was able to communicate with the customers. All the other staff were non-Irish nationals.

Glennon said after she took a successful claim to the Rights Commissioner for holiday pay, a director of the restaurant – a Ms M – took her aside and told her "not to speak to the non-Irish nationals about their legal entitlements".

A week later, Glennon was sacked after the restaurant told her there was no work for her to do.

But Glennon told the tribunal she subsequently learned the restaurant had hired a Chinese national. Meanwhile, a former colleague in the restaurant, an eastern European national, took over her duties at the counter.

Equality officer Stephen Bonnlander said he found Glennon to be "a credible witness".

Bonnlander also noted the evidence presented by the restaurant's liquidators (the restaurant has since been put into liquidation) backed up Glennon's claim that she was replaced by a Chinese national.

"I am satisfied that the facts she [Glennon] has stated in evidence – her successful complaint to the Rights Commissioner, being asked not to inform her colleagues about their entitlements, and her dismissal shortly thereafter, together with the fact that the respondent hired a Chinese national on a full-time basis at the same time and deployed a [foreign] national worker to her former counter duties – gave rise to an inference that the complainant was indeed dismissed because she was Irish and in possession of the language skills and able to stand over her rights successfully," said Bonnlander.

A few weeks after she was sacked Glennon returned to the restaurant as a customer but was refused entry. She claimed this amounted to victimisation for taking the case to the tribunal.

The equality officer agreed and specified €1,000 of the €6,000 award was for victimisation.