The deputy chair of the Labour Court, currently at the centre of a controversy over the refusal to sanction his reappointment for another term, has applied to fill an existing vacancy for the same job at the court.
The move raises the possibility that Alan Haugh will be recommended by the Public Appointments Service (PAS) to fill the role. In a few months’ time, Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke may have to decide whether to appoint him to a role he was being forced out of on Friday.
The current situation arose following the refusal of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) to sanction Mr Haugh’s reappointment.
A vacancy was created following Louise O’Donnell’s elevation to the position of Labour Court chair this summer. Mr Haugh has confirmed to The Irish Times that he applied to fill that vacancy.
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The role usually attracts interest from those working in HR, trade unions, the legal profession and similar fields. Mr Haugh is a barrister who enters the process with 10 years’ experience performing the role.
On Thursday, he says, it was confirmed to him by an official at the Department of Enterprise, which oversees the running of the court, that the Minister was unable to renew his warrant (effectively his contract) due to DPER’s objections. Mr Haugh was seeking a third five-year term and it seemed a formality that he would get it.
DPER’s objection is based on a 2016 Government policy relating to term limits of senior executives at State bodies. The policy document references only chief executives who, it says, should serve no more than 10 years.
Mr Haugh says he requested clarification as to how the policy could be applied to him when he is not a chief executive and the court is a regulatory body. He has yet to receive clarification on this.
Previously, he described the department’s actions as a “terrible attack on the independence of the court”.
On Thursday, employers’ group Ibec and the country’s largest union, Siptu, called on the Government to sanction his reappointment.
Both expressed concerns about the scale of anticipated delays to proceedings at the court. Last year, the Labour Court dealt with more than 800 cases.
The organisation normally works in separate “divisions”, each composed of the chair or a deputy chair and two ordinary members. Due to Ms O’Donnell’s promotion, it was already short a deputy chair, with applications to fill the position closing on Thursday evening. Mr Haugh was finished in his current role on Friday.
It is not clear how long it will take to fill the position vacated by Ms O’Donnell, but it could run into several months. It is also not clear whether the PAS might seek to appoint a second person to fill Mr Haugh’s position at the end of the same process.
One thing does appear certain, though. By the time the two vacancies are filled, the backlog of cases at the court is likely to have grown substantially.
If Mr Haugh ends up being a successful candidate and Mr Burke endorses the selection, it would mean the disruption was all for nothing.
Mr Haugh told The Irish Times he had submitted the application because “I felt I had nothing to lose really”. He said he was also “considering all of my other options”.
In a statement, the Department of Enterprise said Mr Haugh had served “with distinction” during his two fixed-term contracts. . However, after discussions between the DPER and the Department of Enterprise, his second term in the job had concluded on Friday.
“The Minister’s primary concern throughout the discussions and to date is the proper functioning of the Labour Court, and he is fully committed to ensuring that this can be maintained, given the essential role the court plays in resolving industrial relations and employment law issues,” it said.
Provisions were being made, it added, for the management of the court’s workload while the process of filling vacancies was being completed.
The Labour Court, which dealt with more than 800 cases last year, operates under the auspices of the Department of Enterprise but budgets are ultimately signed off on by the DPER.
Hearings at the court involve three-person panels led by either the chair or one of the deputy chairs and two ordinary members of the court.
