The High Court has ruled that key parts of Ireland’s system for setting sector-specific minimum pay and employment conditions were unconstitutional following a challenge brought by a Cork fast-food business and its owner.
John Grace Fried Chicken Limited operates a small restaurant in Cork city. Its managing director and shareholder John Grace joined the company and Quick Service Food Alliance Limited in challenging legislation governing Joint Labour Committees and Employment Regulation Orders.
The immediate dispute concerned a 2008 Catering Employment Regulation Order. It fixed minimum pay and employment conditions for catering workers outside Dublin city and Dun Laoghaire and applied to the Cork business. Breach of an Employment Regulation Order could expose an employer to criminal prosecution as well as liability for unpaid wages or compensation.
Mr Justice Feeney held that sections 42, 43 and 45 of the Industrial Relations Act 1946 and section 48 of the Industrial Relations Act 1990 breached Article 15.2.1 of the Constitution, which reserves law-making power to the Oireachtas.
The problem was not that specialist bodies could never fill in technical details. The court accepted that delegated legislation is often necessary. But the Oireachtas must first set the principles and policies governing how that power is exercised.
Feeney J. found no adequate statutory guidance on how Joint Labour Committees or the Labour Court were to decide actual wage rates or employment conditions. The delegated power was described as fundamental and far-reaching, with Employment Regulation Orders taking effect without parliamentary or ministerial approval and carrying potential criminal consequences.
The court separately held that the 2008 catering order was unreasonable and unlawfully interfered with the property rights of the first two plaintiffs. Evidence showed different statutory pay and employment obligations could apply to neighbouring businesses without an identified principled basis for the distinction.
The court said the plaintiffs were entitled to declarations of invalidity. The precise wording of those declarations, and any question of damages, was left for a further hearing.