The Labour Court awarded an unnamed HSE worker compensation for lost earnings after finding he had not resigned from his Acting Ambulance Officer post. The decision was signed on 28 June 2010. The Court measured the compensation at twice his annual average earnings over the period of his appointment, in full and final settlement of claims arising from the matter.
The worker had more than 30 years’ experience in the ambulance service and successfully competed for the acting post in the Kildare area in 2005. He later joined a separate patient transport project, for which he received the acting-up allowance two days a week. In 2007, he left that project and returned to his usual duties. HSE treated this as resignation from both the project and the acting post; the worker disputed that interpretation.
The worker’s union, the Services Industrial Professional Technical Union, appealed a Rights Commissioner’s recommendation that the claim was not well founded. The union said the project duties were separate from the acting post, while HSE argued that he had ended the acting-up role by leaving the project.
The Court found that he had continued to carry out the Acting Ambulance Officer duties until February or March 2008. It also noted that the need for the role diminished and was eventually eliminated during restructuring of the ambulance service.