Labour Court recommends restoring Donegal drivers’ travel allowances

The Labour Court recommended restoring travel allowances for Donegal County Council’s lorry/plant drivers, including approved allowances for travel already undertaken without payment. The recommendation was signed on 22 October 2010. The Council had stopped payments to 41 drivers, whose arrangement dated to 1976 and involved keeping vehicles at home and transporting workers and equipment to work sites. Services Industrial Professional Technical Union said most drivers had lost about €200 a week and argued the payment counted for superannuation. The Council said it needed to cut costs and disputed that the payments were pensionable. The Court considered the payments allowances for additional duties and said those duties continued, recommending that the allowances be restored.