DAA paid €53,000 towards legal fees for three WRC cases brought by staff – The Irish Times

Airport operator DAA has paid more than €53,000 to offset costs incurred by staff who had taken cases against the company at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).

The company said the payments related to three cases that were taken over recent years to the WRC, which deals primarily with employment disputes.

In reply to a parliamentary question tabled by Fine Gael TD Grace Boland to Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien, the DAA said that over the last five years it had “contributed €53,100 towards legal fees associated with three cases brought against the company before the WRC”.

Asked by The Irish Times for further details about the payments, DAA said it agreed to “cover or contribute to legal costs as part of settlement agreements connected to employment-related disputes”.

“Owing to the terms of these settlement agreements and the confidentiality requirements of same, DAA is not in a position to disclose any additional information regarding these matters,” it said.

In a separate question to the Minister, Boland asked the basis on which his department, or a body within its remit, may fund the legal costs of an employee or former employee in litigation where that employee was in dispute with, or taking proceeding against, the same body.

The airport operator said in reply that “the only circumstance in which legal costs are funded in DAA would be in a situation where in the case of an employment law dispute there is an agreement to pay or contribute towards legal costs as part of the settlement terms or in exceptional circumstances where there is a contractual entitlement to such funding”.

Boland also asked O’Brien whether the funding of employee legal costs in disputes against his department, or a body within its remit, was standard practice and, if not, the circumstances in which such funding may be permitted.

The question was forwarded by the Minister to DAA, which replied to say it was not standard practice for the company to make such payments except in certain circumstances.

These exceptions included cases of an employment law dispute where there was an agreement to pay or contribute towards legal costs as part of the settlement terms or in exceptional circumstances where there was a contractual entitlement to such funding.