The Labour Court varied the Rights Commissioner’s decision on Elizabeth Morrissey’s appeal against Mount St. Michael’s Secondary School, awarding her €12,000 and ordering her reinstatement on a contract of indefinite duration for 5 hours and 20 minutes a week from 1 September 2007. The determination was signed on 23 October 2009.
Morrissey had taught art at the school under successive fixed-term contracts. The school conceded that she was entitled to a contract of indefinite duration from 1 September 2004, but argued that it covered only 2 hours and 40 minutes a week. The Court found the school’s failure to recognise her entitlement contributed to her exclusion from concessionary teaching hours, and that ending her contract amounted to penalisation under the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act, 2003.
The Court set her weekly hours at 5 hours and 20 minutes, based on her contracted hours from September 2004. Reinstatement addressed the section 9 breach, so it made no separate compensation award for that breach. The €12,000 award was for the section 13 breach.