Agreement 'does not create rights'

The Croke Park Agreement does not create enforceable legal rights for an individual public sector employee, a High Court judge has ruled.

The agreement involved the Government and trade unions agreeing on industrial peace in return for no redundancies in the public sector.

Mr Justice Gerard Hogan was giving his judgment on an injunction application by David Holland to restrain Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT), pending the outcome of full legal proceedings, making him redundant as a lecturer in bricklaying.

AIT had told the court it decided to discontinue bricklaying courses because demand for them has completely dried up in the present economic crisis.

Mr Justice Hogan found that Mr Holland was entitled to an injunction on the "narrow" ground of having established a Department of Education circular of 2007 afforded him a legitimate expectation concerning his employment.

That circular stated lecturers who hold a contract of indefinite duration should enjoy permanency in their employment status akin to that of academics with full tenure, the judge said. The Labour Court had decided Mr Holland held such a contract, the judge noted.

However, the judge rejected arguments by Mr Holland's lawyers that the Croke Park Agreement also created a legitimate expectation that nobody working in the public service would be subject to redundancy.

The language used in paragraph 1.6 of that agreement - guaranteeing no redundancies and providing for redeployment in the public service - was "too imprecise, conditional and aspirational" to permit such an interpretation.

The judge noted, before preparing his judgment, he had invited the Attorney General (AG), on behalf of the Government, and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), to offer their views on the enforceability of the Croke Park Agreement in relation to the Holland case.

Ictu general secretary David Begg sent a letter to the court which indicated Congress considered the agreement was binding merely at a political and industrial relations level and not intended to create rights enforceable at law. The AG agreed and also said the agreement should not be taken as conferring legal rights on third parties such as Mr Holland.

The judge said he did not consider the agreement could be taken as creating enforceable legal rights capable of being decided by a court in relation to an individual public sector employee.

He agreed that paragraph 1.6, with regard to redundancies, applies in the sphere of political and industrial relations, but not in the legal sphere.

While the language of that section of the agreement was imprecise, the language of the 2007 Department of Education circular "clearly conveys the view" indefinite contract lecturers enjoyed the same permanency of academics with full tenure, the judge said.