An electrician who was employed by University College Dublin (UCD) said yesterday he was "devastated" when he was told to go home after reporting for work just after his 65th birthday.
Ray Waterhouse told the Employment Appeals Tribunal that he had an agreement with UCD to retire when he was 70, just as his father had done before him. He claimed he was unfairly dismissed from his post and was not given the required notice.
UCD denied his claim and said Mr Waterhouse had consented to retiring when he was 65. Peter Somers BL, for UCD, said Mr Waterhouse had accepted his €90,000 retirement gratuity cheque and had signed a document acknowledging this.
Mr Waterhouse started work in UCD in March 1967. UCD was "a very different organisation" back then and the whole approach was "very laid back" he said. He was not given a written contract but was told that the retirement age was 70.
In 1985, he was promoted to electrical maintenance supervisor. He received a contract but he said he did not remember seeing anything on it about a different retirement age.
UCD's employee relations manager, Michael Flanagan, told the tribunal that workers on manual grades who had joined UCD before 1978 had the right to work until they were 70. However, he said, Mr Waterhouse had forfeited this when he was promoted into a management role.
In 2005, Mr Waterhouse made inquiries about his pension entitlements and he was told he would have to retire at 65. He met Mr Flanagan to discuss the issue in 2006. "He shot me down straight away. He said the 12th of August was the date and there were no negotiations."
UCD later offered to re-engage Mr Waterhouse on a part-time basis for a further two years but he said he rejected this offer as his solicitor was unhappy with parts of it.
On Friday, August 11th, 2006, he collected his €90,000 gratuity cheque and lodged it in his bank account, where it remains.
He arrived at work at 7.30am the following Monday morning. His immediate superior asked why he was there as he was no longer insured. He advised him to go home and take a break. "So I was home and all at 8.30am and I haven't been in UCD since."
Asked by his barrister, Stephen O'Sullivan, why he had accepted the retirement cheque, he said it was a Friday evening and "I wasn't going to leave a cheque for 90 grand in a drawer in the personnel office".
Mr Somers said there were some "fundamental contradictions" in Mr Waterhouse's evidence. "You can't have believed that the normal retirement age was 70 when, in 2005, you sought information, out of turn, on what money you would be getting," he said.
He pointed out that Mr Waterhouse had received yearly updates on his pension entitlements and the statements always gave the retirement age as 65.
"For 20 years, he had been getting statements with the normal retirement age of 65 written on them. That's compelling evidence, I believe," Mr Somers said.
Mr O'Sullivan said the issue centred around whether Mr Waterhouse had given his "meaningful consent" to the variation in his contract which changed the retirement age from 70 to 65.
Mr O'Sullivan maintained it was not meaningful consent as the significance of the change in the retirement date was not emphasised to Mr Waterhouse and he was not advised to get legal advice.
Judgment has been reserved on the case.
