The Labour Court allowed Eve Doherty’s appeal and found that her suspension allowance was unlawfully withheld after her release from prison. The Court’s decision bears the date 7 October 2024. It ordered the Department of Justice and An Garda Síochána to pay the allowance due for 3 to 23 July 2019; the decision does not state an amount.
Doherty, a Garda member on suspension, argued that the allowance remained due after her release. The respondent said the rules authorised stopping payment while she served a sentence. The Court found no allowance was due during her detention under sentence. After her release, however, no review of her entitlement had taken place, and she did not fall within an excluded category. The Court therefore found the allowance properly payable for the period claimed and held that its non-payment was an unlawful deduction from wages. It set aside the earlier decision that had found her complaint not well founded.