Clerical staff pay gap with gardaí must be ‘justified’

The European Court of Justice’s advocate general has said justification must be given for clerical staff being paid up to €12,000 less than gardaí for essentially doing the same work, especially if the reason comes down to sex discrimination.

The “opinion” by Cruz Villalon, was made following a case taken by 14 civilian staff carrying out clerical duties in stations.

In 1998, the Civil Public and Services Union lodged a claim seeking equal pay with uniformed gardaí who were assigned to clerical administration duties. The union said the original cases were taken on behalf of seven clerical officers but since 2006, it has lodged over 7,000 more claims.

It says the gardaí in question receive about €12,000 more, including allowances, than the clerical administrative members.

The initial case taken by the union succeeded before the Equality Tribunal, but the decision was overturned by the Labour Court. It ruled the reason for deploying gardaí in clerical posts was that Garda management believes it is operationally necessary to have serving officers engaged in the work, and the deployment of officers at Garda rates of pay was “an appropriate means of achieving the objectives being pursued by Garda management”.

It also referred to an effort to reduce the number of gardaí in roles where police knowledge and training are not considered essential.

The union appealed to the High Court on a number of legal points. In turn, the court referred a number of questions to the European Court of Justice.

The Irish court’s questions were all framed around a situation where there was “prima facie indirect gender discrimination in pay”. It asked the European legal institution to adjudicate on whether the employer must provide justification for the higher pay rate for one grouping or the lower rate for the other. Mr Villalon said the female claimants needed to provide sufficient evidence that enough men were engaged in equivalent work and are paid more.

He said while there are “clerical posts with policing aspects”, there existed “a number which, working on the assumption they involve work which is indistinguishable, attract a different rate of pay by reason of the category of civil servant to which the person holding the post is assigned, and all the more so where that reason translates, in practice, into a difference which predominantly disadvantages women, thereby indirectly giving rise to discrimination on grounds of sex”.

He recommended the High Court be told where there is prima facie indirect gender discrimination in pay... the employer has to provide justification for the difference and “provide justification in respect of a significant number of men who perform the same work as the appellants”.