Go-ahead for female civil servants’ test cases

THE Government may end up paying out millions of euro in compensation to female civil servants who missed out on promotion after the Labour Court decided yesterday their discrimination cases could proceed.

Test cases on behalf of the 500 women, who claim they were overlooked for promotion as they were job sharers, will proceed after the court said the six-month time limit under equality legislation does not apply. The cases relate to eligibility for promotion and date back to before October 1997.

But success in these test cases would result in up to 500 former job sharers being credited with a full year’s service for promotional eligibility for each year they worked before 1997 and, thereby, open the door for compensation to be paid for loss of promotions. The basis for the claim comes from a European Court of Justice ruling, known as the Gerster case, which established a legal entitlement for workers to be credited with a full year’s service.

Before that case, civil service job sharers were only given six months’ credit for each year’s service, thereby limiting their promotional prospects. In its ruling, the Labour Court said the circumstances had changed significantly as a result of the Gerster case and the time limits should be extended and cases referred to the Director of Equality Investigations.

“There is no doubt that the applicants have a good arguable case on its merits, which in the interest of justice should be heard,” the ruling said.

The Labour Court ruling was welcomed by the three unions that took the case - IMPACT, the Civil and Public Service Union and the Public Service Executive Union.

“The European Court of Justice has already ruled that women in these circumstances were wrongly denied promotion. Now the Labour Court has said the Irish cases should be heard in the interest of justice.

“IMPACT, the CPSU and PSEU are now calling on the Government to stop trying to duck its responsibilities and honour the court’s ruling,” a union spokesperson said. The decision is a blow to the stance of civil service management, which had argued the six-month time limit should be rigidly applied to prevent the cases from proceeding.

Following the Gerster case, the rules were changed in the civil service, so that job sharers are now given credit for years worked on the same basis as full-time staff.

But civil servants who shared jobs between 1984 (when job-sharing was introduced in the civil service) and 1997 are not allowed to claim full credit for their years of service and unions argue they are being denied their entitlement to promotion.

The unions said yesterday this was the second time the Labour Court ruled on the question of time limits in the case. In 2002, the court also found in the unions’ favour, but the Government appealed the case to the High Court, which referred it back to the Labour Court on a legal technicality.