EDA2545

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00040284 (CA-00051573-001).

BACKGROUND:

The Worker appealed the decision of the WRC Adjudication Officer under Section 83 (1), Employment Equality Acts, 1998 to 2015 on 17 June 2024.  A Labour Court hearing took place on 24 April 2025.

The following is the Determination of the Court:

DETERMINATION:

Background to the Appeal

This is an appeal by Mr Liam Murphy (‘the Complainant’) from a decision of an Adjudication Officer (ADJ-00040284, dated 9 May 2024) under the Employment Equality Act 1998 (‘the Act’). Notice of Appeal was received in the Court on 17 June 2024. The Court heard the appeal in Limerick on 24 April 2025.

The Factual Matrix

The Complainant was employed by Deepak Fasteners (Shannon) Limited (‘the Respondent’) as a General Operative from 21 February 1977 until he reached his sixty-fifth birthday on 27 February 2022. He was paid gross €750.00 per week. The Complainant had requested to work beyond that date but his request was not acceded to by the Respondent. The Complainant did not appeal that decision internally. On 6 July 2022, he referred his initiating complaint under the Act, in which he alleged he had been discriminated against on the age ground by virtue of having been compulsorily retired, to the Workplace Relations Commission. The Adjudication Officer decided that his complaint was not well-founded.

The Complainant’s Evidence

The Complainant gave evidence in relation to his employment history with the Respondent and the nature of the work that he was employed to do. He told the Court that his main tasks included feeding wire into a machine and ensuring that that product that emerged was of the right quality. His evidence was that the work did not involve heavy lifting on his part. He also told the Court that he had never had an accident in the workplace.

The Complainant said that it was his ambition to continue working for one year beyond his 65th birthday as he believed he was still fit and competent to do the job and did not have any issues maintaining the level of concentration that was required to do it well. He said that he trained in another operator to succeed him before he retired. He told the Court that since his retirement much of his time has been spent cutting lawns and hedges for his neighbours and that work involves concentration while operating machinery.

The Complainant gave evidence that prior to his retirement he had not been asked to undertake any dexterity tests and nor was he asked to undertake a risk assessment or an occupational health assessment. He was not invited to undertake a pre-retirement course, he said.

Evidence of Mr Seamus McGiff

The witness told the Court that he has been the CEO of the Respondent for approximately one year. He briefly outlined the transition that was taking place in the business as a consequence of the growth in the numbers of electric vehicles being manufactured.

He said that in recent years the Respondent -which is currently loss-making - has been working with the IDA to develop an expertise in Hydrogen Embrittlement Testing with the result that many of its recent hires have been people with specific skills. They include, for example, an aerospace engineer and an apprentice electrician. Newly recruited employees undergo up to four months of intensive training, under the supervision of an engineer, to develop skills in areas related to Hydrogen Embrittlement Testing.

According to the witness the company employees forty-seven employees with an average age of fifty-six. He also told the Court that there is a risk that a significant percentage of that workforce will retire in or around the same time and this, combined with the Respondent’s new business focus, creates an imperative to hire new people with specific skills so as to permit the company ‘to pivot in a new direction’.

The witness said that he had worked for the Respondent for approximately one year before the Complainant’s retirement and it was his understanding that the Complainant had been trained to operate only one machine. His evidence was that although that machine was still in use, it was not deployed on full-time basis.

The witness’s direct evidence then focused on the details of the Respondent’s pension scheme. He said that the company originally had a defined benefit scheme in place but that this had been replaced by a defined contribution scheme in 2014. The witness gave details of the employer and employee contribution levels to the respective schemes.

Under cross-examination, the witness accepted that there had been no meeting with the Complainant to discuss the decision to reject his application for longer working. The witness said that he could not recall reviewing the Code of Practice on Longer Working. He also accepted that management had not been provided with training in relation to exploring the use of flexible working arrangements, for example, to retain the skills of older workers. He was asked if there had been any issues with the Complainant’s productivity levels and he replied that no productivity issues are raised with people approaching retirement. The witness also acknowledged that he had only made one telephone enquiry to the Respondent’s insurance company regarding cover for a worker working beyond age 65 and had not consulted with other employers or employer organisations. The witness did confirm the Respondent’s pension scheme does provide an upper age limit of 70 for draw down of the pension. He also confirmed that one employee had been permitted to work beyond 65 ‘for financial reasons’.

Discussion and Decision

There was no evidence before the Court that the Respondent has ever given serious consideration to developing a contemporary retirement policy that has regard to the Code of Practice on Longer Working and the evolution of employment equality legislation. It appears to the Court that the Respondent, faced with an application from the Complainant to extend his working relationship with it for one year beyond age 65 that it hastily sought to construct a retrospective type of objective justification for its decision to compel his retirement on his 65th birthday.

Having regard to the evidence before it the Court finds that there is no mandatory retirement provision in the Complainant’s contract of employment; the machine that the Complainant operated for many years is still in use, albeit on part-time basis; there were no performance, health and safety, or concentration issues with the Complainant prior to his compulsory retirement; the Respondent had no regard whatsoever to the Code of Practice on Longer Working and the Respondent did not engage in any meaningful way with the Complainant’s request. On the basis of the foregoing, the Court concludes that there is no objective justification that the Respondent can rely on in support of its decision of compulsorily retire the Complainant simply because he reached the age of 65.

The Court measures the compensation payable to the Complainant for the effects of the Company’s discriminatory treatment at €18,000.00 being approximately equivalent to six months’ gross pay.

The decision of the Adjudication Officer is set aside.

The Court so determines.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Alan Haugh
TH	______________________
24 July 2025	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Decision should be addressed to Ms Therese Hickey, Court Secretary.