Workers celebrate €400 lunch payment

A group of council workers celebrated yesterday after the Labour Court recommended they should receive an ‘eating onsite’ allowance.

The workers will receive between €400 to €450 each as the allowance is set at €9.52 per week.

Chief executive of small and medium-sized business group ISME Mark Fielding said yesterday that workers in the private sector “will have a fit” when they see such allowances and perks being paid.

“Workers in the private sector will be wondering why workers in the public sector should get an allowance on the basis of where or how they eat their lunch,” said Mr Fielding.

However, union Impact insisted the eating onsite allowance had been paid for more than 35 years to council workers. Around 1,500 general operatives at Dublin City Council receive the allowance.

In its ruling, the Labour Court stated “on a strict interpretation of the relevant agreement, it could be cogently argued that the allowance in issue does not apply in this case. However, the agreement is not applied with the same degree of stricture to the vast majority of similarly graded staff who also have access to kitchen facilities”.

The Labour Court stated : “It is acknowledged that, of 185 similarly graded staff, 154 are in receipt of the allowance. There is no material difference in the standard or quality of facilities available to those in receipt of the payment and those available to the claimants. In these circumstances, the position taken by the council is unsustainable.”

As a result, the court recommended the allowance be paid to the claimants associated with this claim from November 29.

An additional 23 workers of similar circumstances do not currently receive the allowance and they may now be in line to receive it.

The payment has not been paid to the workers in question for 10 years.

The payment was available originally to waterworks personnel. An Impact spokesman said: “These were workers who, because of the nature and location of their work, were unable to go to an indoor lunch facility, or make a purchase of food near their site location.

“The allowance was then extended to other outdoor personnel and also included general operative staff working in local authority leisure centres. Staff in those leisure centres were still restricted to a 30-minute break, so the allowance in this context became the standard, as it is the standard for the working grade.”

Meanwhile, Mr Fielding said: “All of these allowances should have been addressed by Government but it has failed abjectly to do anything about it. The crisis in the economy provided Government with an opportunity to do something about the allowances and perks, but it missed the opportunity.”

Dublin City Council did not comment.