Seven social care workers whose employment was due to come to an end yesterday have secured High Court injunctions preventing the Health Service Executive (HSE) from dismissing them pending the outcome of their full court challenge.
They are Claire Norton, Amanda Keenan, Susan Killeen, Janice Lynch, Teresa Ryan, Jenny Moore and Sarah Roberts.
The women had claimed the HSE was their employer, not agencies as it contended, and Mr Justice Roderick Murphy found yesterday the women were entitled to an interlocutory injunction restraining the HSE from terminating their employment. The HSE had claimed the women were employees of Don Bosco House, an agency with whom it claimed they had employment contracts .
There was a “triangular relationship” between the plaintiffs, the agency and the HSE, the judge remarked.
In his reserved judgment, Mr Justice Murphy said the written documentation in this case might not reflect the reality of the relationship between the parties. He ordered that the posts being reorganised within the HSE be advertised so as to allow the women the same opportunity as other workers to compete for them.