In 1996, the Labour Court recommended that Kerry County Council should not grant maintenance assistants the meal allowance paid to overseers. The recommendation, dated 1 November 1996, said the difference between the meal allowance and the assistants' eating-on-site allowance was appropriate to the circumstances in which each had been granted.
The Services Industrial Professional Technical Union had sought the meal allowance for the assistants, who received £1.13 while overseers received £7.79 a day. It argued that assistants carried out skilled maintenance work and were treated less favourably than colleagues. The council said the overseers' allowance reflected their earlier use of their own cars to transport assistants and equipment, and that the roles were not comparable.
The Court said the passage of time was not enough to disturb the difference and recommended that any further pursuit of the claim take place at national level.