This is an appeal brought by Trinity College, Dublin against the decision of an Adjudication Officer in a claim of unfair dismissal by Mr Iftikhar Ahmad against his former employer. The Adjudication Officer found in favour of the Complainant’s claim and held that the Complainant should be re-engaged by the Respondent (on return of the redundancy payment) in an alternative role without loss of his prior service, within one week of the date of his Decision. The Respondent appealed the Decision on 17th January 2020.

The Complainant commenced employment as a Research Assistant on a fixed-term contract in 2013. Thereafter, he received successive fixed-term contracts as a Research Fellow, on specified purpose contracts which were funded from external sources. As the funding for the project ceased, the Complainant was made redundant in December 2018 and was paid a statutory redundancy payment of €6,564.

The Respondent contended that as the Complainant was employed to carry out research in posts which were externally funded research posts the Complainant was not protected from compulsory redundancy and stated that the Complainant’s employment could be terminated in accordance with the Respondent’s existing exit provision in line with the Public Service Agreement 2010-2014 (“the Croke Park Agreement”) which states:

“The Government gives a commitment that compulsory redundancies will not apply within the public service, save where existing exit provisions apply”

The Complainant submitted that the Respondent relied solely on the grounds that research posts are not protected from compulsory redundancy where they are externally funded. However, in doing so, the Respondent failed to address the issue of fair procedures.  The Complainant maintained that he should not have been made redundant without at least a rigorous exercise taking place to find reasonable redeployment options. He did not receive any support/help to find alternative jobs in the university.

The Court found that insufficient efforts were made by the Respondent to seek alternative roles for the Complainant and therefore the court cannot accept that his dismissal by virtue of fair selection for redundancy had been discharged by the Respondent and consequently, the court held that the Complainant was unfairly dismissed. The Court considered the remedies available and decided that reinstatement or re-engagement of the Complainant was not a practical option in this case and awarded the Complainant compensation in the sum of €20,000 in excess of the Statutory Redundancy payment already received by the Complainant.
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2020/october/udd2030.html