The High Court has refused a hospital worker’s application for judicial review of a decision not to uphold her grievance about working arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The anonymised applicant challenged a 5 November 2020 decision by a hospital decision-maker. She argued that the hospital had failed to follow HSE requirements and fair procedures, acted irrationally and gave inadequate reasons. Her grievance concerned medical advice that she should avoid exposure to COVID-19 while transporting patients as part of her work. She had sought work from home or in another hospital area.
The court found that the dispute arose solely and exclusively from the applicant’s employment contract with the hospital, and was therefore a private-law matter outside judicial review. It noted that her employment was contractual, her complaint was made under the hospital’s grievance policy, and the dispute did not concern a disciplinary matter or arise directly from the hospital’s public function. The respondents had the burden of showing that the matter was manifestly private; the judge found they had met it.
The judge also considered the substance of the challenge in case that conclusion was wrong. The applicant had not established that the decision-maker breached fair procedures by consulting an occupational health doctor and the applicant’s manager. The decision-maker had met the applicant and her SIPTU representative in October 2020.
The court said the decision referred to consideration of the applicant’s external specialist reports. It found that the reports did not establish that she should cocoon or was at very high risk of COVID-19. One specialist advised minimising possible workplace exposure; another advised self-isolating as much as possible and supported her intention to work from home. The judge concluded that the applicant had not shown the reports were ignored or that the decision was irrational or inadequately reasoned.
A separate complaint about the Alama toolkit evaluation was described as misconceived: the toolkit was introduced in HSE guidance in January 2021, after the challenged decision, and was not identified in Circular 34/2020.
The court refused the reliefs sought, including certiorari. It did not make a finding that the applicant was medically fit to work; its alternative assessment was that she had not proved grounds for the judicial review order.