{"id":573664,"date":"2026-07-29T11:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T11:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/573664\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T11:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T11:15:13","slug":"wrc-staff-take-legal-case-against-state-for-failing-to-implement-pay-award-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/573664\/","title":{"rendered":"WRC staff take legal case against State for failing to implement pay award \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A dozen civil servants at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC)<\/a> have initiated High Court<\/a> proceedings against the State for failure to implement a pay award.<\/p>\n

The staff members, who work as adjudication officers, have taken the case against the Minister for Public Expenditure as well as the Minister for Employment in a bid to have an arbitration award implemented.<\/p>\n

The staff, who won a case at the Civil Service Conciliation and Arbitration Board last November, successfully argued they should be upgraded from assistant principal level to assistant principal higher.<\/p>\n

Such a move involves an initial pay increase of just over \u20ac8,000 per annum, a difference that grows with increments to about \u20ac11,000 over time.<\/p>\n

The 12 argued the nature and demands of their work had changed substantially since a 2021 decision in the Supreme Court<\/a> which altered the way the WRC\u2019s cases are administered.<\/p>\n

At the time, Industrial Relations News reported the ruling as having \u201cconsiderable and far-reaching changes in the role, responsibilities, accountability and additional requirements of the relevant adjudication officers\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, the two parties were told it was a matter for them to work out how the regrading might be implemented.<\/p>\n

The approval of the Department of Public Expenditure<\/a> was required by the Department of Employment<\/a> to implement the recommendation, but the former refused to give it.<\/p>\n

It argued the claim was cost-increasing, something prohibited under the wider public sector pay agreement. The department said it could only be funded under that agreement\u2019s local bargaining element.<\/p>\n

There has been no significant progress since, and the 12 civil servants are now seeking a judicial review of the department\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

The case has been lodged in the name of one of the 12, Lefre De Burgh, with no date for any hearing set yet. The adjudication officers are represented by O\u2019Mara, Geraghty, McCourt. <\/p>\n

Though the claim was originally lodged in 2021, the pay increase would be due to be backdated to July 2023, which would still require significant lump sums to be paid.<\/p>\n

The WRC deals with hundreds of cases involving workplace disputes each year, and this is not the first occasion in recent times when its own staff have challenged their pay or conditions.<\/p>\n

Another adjudication officer, Seamus Clinton, took a case to the WRC this year alleging he had been excluded from promotional opportunities, in part because he had represented the Civil Service adjudication officers in the dispute that is now set to go to the High Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dozen civil servants at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) have initiated High Court proceedings against the State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,242031,14999,61,60,8779,6465],"class_list":["post-573664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-department-of-employment","tag-department-of-public-expenditure-and-reform","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-supreme-court","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}