The Labour Court found it unfair that two Emergency Management Officers at the Health Services Executive (HSE) did the same duties as, and were interchangeable with, colleagues on different grades. In a decision signed on 20 May 2010, it varied a Rights Commissioner’s recommendation and said the parties should seek a way to correct the workers’ position within the limits of a government moratorium on regrading.
The two Grade 6 officers were represented by the Irish Municipal, Public and Civil Trade Union, which appealed the recommendation issued on 27 November 2009. The union argued the grading issue should not be folded into a wider health-service reorganisation. The HSE said individual grading issues depended on wider service changes and that the moratorium prohibited upgrades.
The Court recognised the constraints the moratorium placed on the HSE but said the parties should seek a mechanism to rectify the unfair anomaly. It varied the earlier recommendation accordingly.