The High Court has refused Catherine (otherwise Máire) Aherne’s application to extend the time for appealing a Labour Court decision, finding no good or sufficient reason for the delay and no arguable ground of appeal.
Mr Justice Mark Heslin delivered the judgment on 16 March 2023. The application concerned a proposed appeal on a point of law under section 46 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015. That provision sets a 42-day limit. The Labour Court decision was made on 10 June 2022, and Ms Aherne’s motion was issued on 16 August 2022.
The judge accepted that Ms Aherne had a bona fide intention to appeal within the permitted period. Evidence showed she paid €210 in stamp duty on 22 July 2022 while seeking to lodge an appeal. The judgment proceeded on the basis most favourable to her on the deadline: that the 42 days ran from her receipt of the decision on 13 June and expired on 25 July.
Ms Aherne said she had a medical appointment in Galway on 22 July and posted her stamped, signed papers so she could travel there. The court noted she had been offered an in-person filing appointment that day, which she chose not to attend. It also found she had not explained why she did not contact the court office earlier, reschedule the appointment, or attend the Central Office by 25 July. The papers were later returned for corrections, including issues with the affidavit jurat and the notice of motion. The judge found the delay resulted from choices that amounted to poor planning, not a qualifying mistake, and that the papers were not shown to have reached the office in time.
The court also considered the proposed appeal’s grounds. Ms Aherne’s underlying complaint arose from her employer’s 2020 instruction to attend school visits and the disciplinary action that followed her refusal. The Labour Court had found that removing her from a voluntary Lead Worker Representative role amounted to penalisation, but that the detriment was minimal and did not warrant compensation. It rejected her claim that the disciplinary action was penalisation for raising safety concerns, finding it followed her failure to comply with an instruction.
Justice Heslin said the proposed High Court appeal did not identify an error of law or a challenge to findings that could be reviewed in a point-of-law appeal. He also found the motion did not state the question for the court concisely as required by the Rules of the Superior Courts. The court declined to extend time, concluding that doing so was not required by the interests of justice.
The judgment did not determine the final form of order or costs. It directed the parties to correspond about those matters and said short written submissions should be filed within 14 days if they could not agree. The judge expressed a preliminary view that the normal rule on costs should apply.