The senior Labour Court official due to depart this week after the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform blocked his reappointment has said the move was a “terrible attack on the independence of the court”. He said he was twice told by another department his contract would be extended.
On Monday, management at the court informed legal practitioners with cases pending there that the move would have a “severe impact” on day-to-day operations and require dozens of cases to be reheard.
Barrister Alan Haugh has been a deputy chair at the court since 2015. He said he expected his five-year warrant – essentially his contract – would be renewed as the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment had twice indicated over the past year it would be.
“Instead, as things stand, I will be unemployed on Monday,” he told The Irish Times.
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He said he would not have left his legal practice a decade ago to accept the role if he had believed the job was temporary.
“I took the job on the basis it was a five-year term that was renewable but it didn’t say renewable once.”
He said established practice was that such positions were renewed until retirement. He cited the instances of Kevin Duffy who served 13 years as chair of the court until his retirement in 2016 and Caroline Jenkinson who retired in 2021 after more than 22 years as a deputy chair.
It is understood, however, that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, in blocking Mr Haugh’s reappointment, is seeking to adhere to a Government policy that senior officials at State bodies receive no more than one contract renewal and serve no more than 10 years.
The policy was recently at the heart of a dispute involving Eilísh Hardiman, former chief executive at Children’s Health Ireland, after the hospital group’s board sought to reappoint her for a third five-year term. However, then minister for health Stephen Donnelly refused to sanction the move.
Ms Hardiman initiated legal action and after a mediation process she was appointed to a newly created position at the group with the same salary as before. A meeting of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee was told in July that Ms Hardiman’s legal costs of €123,000 were paid by the office of the Chief State Solicitor.
Mr Haugh said he hoped some solution could be found to his situation this week but that “there doesn’t appear to be any desire for engagement”.
The Labour Court, which dealt with more than 800 cases last year, operates under the auspices of the Department of Enterprise but budgets are ultimately signed off on by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
Hearings at the court involve three-person panels led by either the chair or one of the deputy chairs and two ordinary members of the court.
It is already operating at reduced capacity as the process continues to fill the deputy chair vacancy that arose when Louise O’Donnell was named as the new chair of the organisation in April.
Mr Haugh said the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform’s intervention with regard to his position was inappropriate. He did not believe the wider Government policy could apply in the Labour Court.
“This is completely at odds with what the Supreme Court said in Zalewski (a case that involved the Workplace Relations Commission but had profound implications for the operation of other organisations that exercised quasi-judicial functions), that bodies like the Labour Court should be independent.
“But how are you supposed to act independently, without fear or favour, when you are looking over your shoulder because DPER (the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform) might terminate your employment?”
The Department of Enterprise and Employment said it could not comment on individual cases while the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform declined to comment.
