by Andrew Carey
A LIMERICK worker who was awarded €5,000 in an unfair dismissal case, has been told that a Circuit Court judge cannot order her employer to pay her the money.
The woman, who had less than 12 months employment at the Limerick-based company, was granted a hearing before a Rights Commissioner as she was unable to bring a case to the Employment Appeals Tribunal because of the short term of service she had with the company.
The Rights Commisioner ruled that she had a causable action because she was treated unfairly by her employer.
At Limerick Circuit Court last week, Judge Carroll Moran heard from Maria Lane, BL for the aggrieved woman that she had taken her case to the Rights Commissioner last year after her employment was terminated by her then employer.
After consenting to engage with the process, the employer was found to be in breach and the woman was awarded €2,000 in compensation. She appealed the award and judgement to the Labour Court and it subsequently increased the amount of compensation to €5,000.
Following the appeal, the employer failed to engage with the process further and “simply ignored all correspondence” sent from the woman’s legal team in an effort to claim the money.
She was now asking the court to enforce the order under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act as the employer had fully engaged in the process but then withdrew from it.
Solicitor for the employer, Pat McHugh said the woman had no rights to bring the motion before the Circuit Court judge as the award from the Labour Court was only a recommendation and therefore not bound by legislation. He added that there was no provision in law for the woman to request a Circuit Court judge to enforce the decision.
After Ms Lane said it was the only way to ensure the Labour Court recommendation was enforced, Judge Moran said that despite the history of the case, he had to refuse the application for want of jurisdiction”.
An application by Mr McHugh to have the court costs paid by the woman was refused by Judge Moran who made no order on costs.
