The High Court has ordered the Health Service Executive (HSE) to preserve a paramedic supervisor’s contractual entitlements to a post at Loughlinstown and pay his salary and benefits until his case goes to trial. The interlocutory order leaves unresolved whether his employment with the National Ambulance Service (NAS) continued after he moved to another HSE role and whether the assurances he says he received could lawfully bind the HSE.
The plaintiff had worked for the HSE since around 2000 and became a Paramedic Supervisor in the NAS in 2019. In February 2022, he left that role for a Business Continuity Manager position at James Connolly Memorial Hospital. He began the new job on 7 February but resigned eight days later, saying he wanted to return to the NAS.
The plaintiff’s account was that managers assured him he could withdraw his resignation and resume his former role. On 15 February, the HSE confirmed that his HR106 form, used to record an employee’s departure or transfer, had been withdrawn. He said he then resigned from the hospital role in reliance on those assurances. The HSE later said it had to process the HR106 with an effective date of 6 February because he had been set up on the hospital payroll. It argued that he was no longer an HSE employee and would have to return through formal recruitment procedures.
The HSE also relied on a recruitment panel and a staff transfer policy, saying managers could not bypass them to restore him to his former post. It said three supervisors on a transfer panel had sought to move to Loughlinstown. The court noted the competing evidence and said it could not resolve those disputes at this interlocutory stage.
Justice Eileen Roberts found the plaintiff had established a strong case likely to succeed at trial, based on the express assurances and his reliance on them. She stressed that this did not mean he would succeed. Whether the assurances were beyond the HSE’s legal powers, and whether recruitment rules and policies applied, would require detailed evidence and analysis at trial.
The court granted both requested injunctions. The HSE cannot appoint someone to the Loughlinstown supervisor post unless the plaintiff’s contractual entitlements are preserved if he wins at trial. It must also pay his salary and benefits until trial. In return, he undertook to perform tasks assigned by the HSE at Loughlinstown; the HSE may limit them to duties also normally performed by an advanced paramedic. The court said this work would not determine his employment status at trial. His undertaking to pay damages if required under the interim injunction also remained in force.