The High Court is to revoke an order that a Garda civilian driver be re-engaged following his enforced retirement at 70.
Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy, on Friday, refused to continue an interim order which was granted on January 30th last requiring the Garda Commissioner to immediately re-engage Tom Ronan as a civilian driver with the force.
Mr Ronan had sought injunctions requiring that he be re-engaged in compliance with a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator’s decision that he was discriminated against on the ground of age.
After the High Court granted him the interim order, the Commissioner sought to have it set aside because an appeal of the WRC decision was pending before the Labour Court. The Commissioner also said that under the law, there was no provision to employ him after he reached 70.
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Mr Justice Mulcahy dealt with the question of continuing the January 30th order pending full hearing of the case and with the Commissioner’s application to set the interim order aside.
In his decision, he said he would continue the interim order until February 26th when his revocation order will be formally made and the question of costs can be dealt with.
The court heard last week that pending Mr Justice Mulcahy’s decision, Mr Ronan was back at work and performing his duties on a “pro tem” (for the time being) basis.
The judge said there is a statutory process whereby a party has a right to appeal a WRC decision to the Labour Court which is what occurred in this case.
While Mr Ronan claimed the statutory process was being undermined if he did not get the injunction, “what he really means is that he may not get the benefit of an order which is the subject of an appeal”.
The judge said that was precisely what the legislative scheme contemplates.
If the Labour Court agrees with the WRC decision, Mr Ronan will obtain the benefit of that remedy, he said. However, that is a matter for the Labour Court and the High Court “cannot simply assume” that it will order his re-engagement.
Even if this could be assumed to be so, there was no evidential basis for contending that Mr Ronan would not enjoy the benefit of any award made (by the Labour Court), he said.
It was claimed Mr Ronan would be too old to enjoy the benefit of any such order because of the time the appeal process can take. However, the judge said, no evidence had been provided to show this.
He was not persuaded that there is any jurisdiction to grant the injunction sought in aid of the statutory process.
“Even if I am wrong in that, and a jurisdiction exists to intervene in an exceptional case, I am not satisfied that this is such an exceptional case.”
Mr Ronan had not made out a strong case for an injunction in aid of his discrimination claim before the Labour Court, he said.
For similar reasons, the judge was not satisfied Mr Ronan was entitled to an injunction on the basis of his claim that the absence of a mechanism for interim relief in the statutory scheme is in breach of his EU or constitutional rights.
