Labour Court overturns HSE recommendation and backs nursing role regularisation

The Labour Court overturned an Adjudication Officer recommendation and recommended that the Health Service Executive regularise an anonymised worker in his acting Area Director of Nursing role. The Court’s decision was dated 26 June 2020. The worker had held the acting post since February 2014. The HSE said the temporary appointment was needed during a transition in mental health services and that the substantive postholder could return. The Court accepted that the transition required specialist expertise, but found that repeated contract extensions, uncertainty about when the assignment would end, the permanent filling of the worker’s former post and the lack of required prior approval supported his expectation of permanency. The Court recommended regularisation from the date the decision is accepted, limited to the worker’s specific circumstances.