A woman at the centre of an investigation into the misallocation of housing in Dublin City Council has been dismissed for bringing the local authority into disrepute. However, while implicated in the misallocation of housing, the staff member has continually claimed she was following orders and says the practice was far more widespread than is known.

Her dismissal follows a number of cases in which council properties were allocated to people on the grounds of medical priority although it was later discovered their applications were bogus.

Sources close to the subsequent investigations into misallocations have suggested the practice amounted to a "culture" within the council and that the probes did not go far enough.

Speaking to the Sunday Tribune on the condition of anonymity, the employee, a mother of one, said she had been made a scapegoat after making allegations through grievance procedures.

She said she in no way benefited from processing the allocations and that in her previous job as a clerical officer in a government department she had never had any run-ins with management.

Following a falling out with another individual in the housing department in 2007, the woman was transferred to the maintenance section.

She said she only found herself in trouble when she launched a grievance procedure which outlined the nature of misallocation practices.

In a letter last week, she discovered she had been dismissed on five grounds including bringing the council into disrepute, engaging in fraudulent or corrupt practices, the deliberate or unauthorised misuse of computer equipment, falsification of records and breaching an obligation of trust. She is now seeking advice on bringing the matter before the Employment Appeals Tribunal.

"They wanted a head, any head; they didn't care whose head, but I do believe they are targeting me because I spoke out," she said. "I am gutted. It's hard enough to get a job in the current climate but how can you go to your next employer having been dismissed under these headings?

"In the three-and-a-half years I worked in the maintenance section afterwards I was never in an ounce of trouble. Some of my colleagues are really upset."

Claims made by the former employee were subsequently supported by a separate source while an anonymous staff member later began emailing elected officials in Dublin City Council with further claims and allegations.

While there is no indication the alleged abuses are widespread, sources within the council have outlined serious concerns that they do not stop with one employee or with one system of allocation.

As revealed recently in the Sunday Tribune, gardaí were contacted by council officials when a taped phone message, in which a named councillor appealed for homeless accommodation to be granted to a friend, was circulated to several people.