An administrator who spent 17 years working for the Ryan Commission on child abuse has secured an order directing his former employer to make good on two years of pay increments he did not receive prior to being made redundant.
However, the Workplace Relations Commission has said Conor Ryan was too late to make a claim of unfair dismissal in which he claimed he should have been given the opportunity to transfer to other work in the public sector.
The tribunal has rejected claims under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 and the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003, against the Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse, but made an order in Mr Ryan's favour on a third claim under the Payment of Wages Act 1991.
The Commission of Inquiry, which was chaired by Justice Sean Ryan, gave its final public report in 2009 on the mistreatment, neglect and sexual abuse of children in industrial schools and reformatories.
The WRC was told the Commission had 70 staff at its height, but was in "wind down" mode from 2009, chiefly processing legal payments, until the final bill was dealt with in 2019.
The only work left after that was in preparing its records for storage, the Commission submitted - with its leadership deciding in March 2022 that there was no more work for contract staff.
Mr Ryan had joined the Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse in June 2005 and was made redundant in July 2022, the tribunal heard.
Mr Ryan was told his role had "ceased to exist" the following month and was terminated in July that year, following a redundancy process, the tribunal heard.
His trade union argued he was a clerical officer acting up as an executive officer at that time - while the Commission’s legal team maintained he "was not a civil servant" but a "contract worker engaged as an administrator".
In legal submissions, Cliodhna McNamara of the Fórsa trade union argued that while Mr Ryan had not been hired in by the Public Appointments Service as usual for a civil servant, he was "for all employee purposes a serving civil servant" and "should have been redeployed back into the civil and public service" when redundancy was on the table.
"The employer did not consult with Fórsa and therefore did not present an opportunity to Conor directly to discuss the selection process for redundancy," she added.
The union submitted it was "aware of at least one of Conor's colleagues who was not subject to any redundancy process and is still working" at the Commission of Inquiry.
That "implies that the redundancy process applied to what were deemed to be contract staff only, but this is still not clear," Ms McNamara submitted.
The union argued that Mr Ryan had been subject to "less favourable treatment" because the redundancy process had been applied to him; because his employer did not seek to redeploy him, and did not apply the terms of a collective agreement on redundancy for public servants or give him access to a pension scheme.
The only objective grounds were his "status as a fixed-term employee", it added.
Mr Ryan made a pay claim on the basis that although he received a pay rise in 2020, he was denied further pay rises on the executive officer pay scale. His union further submitted that his pay in 2020 was "miscalculated" and should have been €7,694 higher.
Claire Bruton BL, appearing for the Commission of Inquiry instructed by Bronagh Sawey of Ivor Fitzpatrick & Company Solicitors, called the pay claim and the claim for less favourable treatment "misconceived". She argued that the dismissal claim was beyond the WRC's jurisdiction, as the complaint form had been submitted more than six months after the date of termination.
Addressing Mr Ryan’s Protection of Employees complaint, adjudicating officer Jim Dolan added that because the worker had acquired a contract of indefinite duration no later than January 2021 he no longer had standing to pursue a complaint alleging differential treatment as a fixed-term employee when he lodged that complaint in May 2022.
However, the adjudicator found that a pay claim also lodged with the tribunal at that time was admissible, as it related to a "continuous" series of deductions from fortnightly pay.
Mr Dolan said the file note made by the Secretary to the Commission of Inquiry "clearly" stated Mr Ryan was "being placed on an incremental pay scale and should be reviewed in 12 months time if the Commission remains open".
"The Commission did remain open; the complainant continued working [there] for a period of three years," he added.
He ordered the Commission of Inquiry to consult with the National Shared Services Office to "establish the amount of the underpayment", agree it with Mr Ryan's trade union, and pay it to him within 42 days.
Mr Dolan ruled Mr Ryan's dismissal complaint, which had been lodged in February 2023, to be out of time as it was received by the WRC more than six months after the termination of employment.
