The Workplace Relations Commission ordered Metropolitan Films International Limited to pay stagehand Raymond Lyons €5,000 after finding breaches of fixed-term work protections. The decision was dated 19 December 2023.
Lyons worked on film and television productions from 2015, with periods without work between productions. The company argued he was employed by separate production companies and that his complaint was out of time. The adjudication officer found Metropolitan Films was his employer and that his complaint, made in January 2020, was within the time limit because his dismissal took effect on 1 December 2019.
The officer found there were no objective grounds for using successive specified-purpose contracts and that the company failed to give written reasons. Those breaches meant the claims under sections 7 and 8 succeeded. His separate claim for a contract of indefinite duration was not well founded because, despite four years of continuous service, he had not shown four years of aggregate contract duration.