The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by the Ministers for Agriculture and Food and Finance over the removal from the payroll of 14 civil servants who took limited industrial action at the Department of Agriculture and Food office in Clonakilty, Co Cork, in 2003.
In a judgment delivered on 16 March 2005, the court affirmed the High Court orders quashing the payroll removal decision and declaring it unlawful under section 16 of the Civil Service Regulation Act 1956. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the applicants’ treatment breached fair procedures or amounted to a suspension; it said those questions did not arise.
The applicants were established civil servants and members of the Civil and Public Service Union. One was a staff officer and the others were clerical officers. During a dispute over promotion and grading structures, they attended work from 23 April 2003 but refused to handle telephone and fax queries in the mornings and afternoons, and counter queries in the afternoons. The judgment describes this as “limited industrial action”.
After the staff refused requests to resume their normal duties, they received warnings on 25 April. They were told they would be removed from the payroll under section 16 from 28 April until they resumed normal duties. They then stopped attending work and picketed the office. They began judicial review proceedings on 12 May 2003.
The ministers argued that employees who refused to perform core duties could be treated as absent from duty even when physically at work. The applicants argued that section 16 concerned unauthorised absence, not partial performance, and that the ministers had relied on no other legal basis for withholding pay.
Justice McGuinness said the appeal turned on section 16’s meaning in the context of the statutory scheme for civil service discipline. She concluded that “absence from duty” meant physical absence from the place of work. Treating partial withdrawal of duties as absence could require all pay to be withheld even where only some duties were not performed, while leaving unclear what level of withdrawal would trigger that result.
The court agreed with the High Court that the applicants’ partial withdrawal from duties did not constitute unauthorised absence under section 16. It dismissed the appeal and affirmed the High Court orders. The judgment noted that other legislation and specialist bodies provided a framework for resolving industrial disputes; it did not determine the merits of the underlying dispute.