LCR23274

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Referral under Section 20(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969.

BACKGROUND:

The Worker referred this case to the Labour Court on 15 October 2025 in accordance with Section 20(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969, and agreed to be bound by the Court’s Recommendation.

A Labour Court hearing took place on 12 May 2026.

RECOMMENADTION:

This case is one of sixteen cases lodged by Mr Ger Kennedy acting as representative for each of the Workers. Mr Kennedy confirmed to the Court that all the Workers he was representing understood that the decision of the Court was binding on them but not on the employer. By email of April 2026 the representative was informed that as he submitted a total of sixteen s20(1) complaint forms on behalf of named individuals the Court did not have jurisdiction to deal with these cases as a collective issue. No response was received from the representative other than he submitted 16 individual submissions. At the commencement of the hearing the Court indicated that it was dealing with 10 cases together and called out the name of each case, together with the date the individuals appeal was lodged and the date they retired from their employment. At no time did the representative indicate that he or his clients had a problem with the Court addressing all ten cases at one sitting nor did he indicate that some of his clients were not present. The issue common to all these cases was that they were manifestly out of time as all the Workers involved had retired from the employment somewhere between 14 months and 6 years before the complaints had been lodged on 15 October 2025. As such the Court had no jurisdiction to hear the cases. This appeared to the Court to come as a surprise to the Workers involved.Section 26A of the Industrial Relations Act 1990 states:

 (1) Notwithstanding any other provision of this or any other enactment, but subject to subsection (2), an adjudication officer or the Court shall not investigate a trade dispute to which a worker who has ceased to be employed by reason of his or her retirement is a party unless—

(a) the dispute was referred to the Commission for conciliation within a period of 6 months from the date on which the worker’s employment ceased, or the date on which the event to which the dispute relates occurred, whichever is the earlier, or

(b) the dispute was referred to an adjudication officer or, as the case may be, the Court within the period referred to in paragraph (a).

(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), an adjudication officer or, as the case may be, the Court may extend the period referred to in that subsection by a further period not exceeding 6 months where the adjudication officer or the Court is satisfied that the failure to refer the dispute within the period referred to in subsection (1) was due to reasonable cause.

For a representative to submit that volume of individual cases which are manifestly out of time and put the Court to the expense in terms of time and resources of processing and scheduling the cases for hearing is unacceptable and a waste of taxpayer’s money. In order to avoid further waste of the Court’s resources the representative was afforded the opportunity to talk to his clients with a view to withdrawing their claims and saving the Court the time and resources of having to issue 10 individual decisions. However, the representative informed the Court that they wanted individual decisions to issue.

As this case is manifestly out of time the Court has no jurisdiction to hear the case.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Louise O'Donnell
AM	______________________
22/06/2026	Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Recommendation should be in writing and addressed to Ms Áine Maunsell, Court Secretary.