The Labour Court allowed ESB Networks’ appeal and set aside a Rights Commissioner decision requiring it to offer David Kingham a contract of indefinite duration. The determination was dated 4 October 2005.
Kingham had worked as a temporary general worker before moving to an apprenticeship after his final fixed-term contract expired on 30 September 2004. He argued ESB Networks should have offered him a permanent contract under the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003. The Rights Commissioner had upheld that complaint, but Kingham did not appeal the separate finding that his conditions of employment did not breach the Act.
The Labour Court found that an apprenticeship was not a contract of service and that an apprentice was excluded from the Act’s definition of a fixed-term employee. It concluded that beginning the apprenticeship did not renew Kingham’s fixed-term contract, so his section 9 complaint was not well founded.