The Labour Court upheld a worker’s appeal and awarded her €5,000 compensation after finding Gardiner Street Primary School failed to recognise her entitlement to a contract of indefinite duration. The determination was signed on 17 April 2009.
The worker had been employed as a resource teacher and English as a second language teacher on successive fixed-term contracts. The school argued that the Department of Education and Science deemed her unqualified and that her post depended on annual approval, funding and pupil numbers.
The Court found that a further one-year contract from September 2004 breached the fixed-term work law: after three years’ continuous employment, the school could renew the worker’s contract only once, for no more than a year. The later agreement relied on by the school was made in October 2005 and could not justify the earlier renewal. The Court also found that the employment ended because the school did not offer the indefinite-duration contract, rather than because the worker retired.