Consultant wins case against UCD

Labour court: A medical consultant at Temple Street's Children's University Hospital has been awarded €100,000 by the Labour Court in a case taken against University College Dublin.

According to the Labour Court finding, the issue concerned a dispute between the consultant who is a paediatrician at Temple Street and the Rotunda hospitals, and UCD regarding his academic contract. The Labour Court in its published finding identified the doctor only as a part-time professor of paediatrics who had held the post since 1983.

The court said its award dealt only with the retrospective pay elements of the contract dispute. Other terms of the contract had been settled between the consultant and UCD.

The consultant told the court that the revised consultant's contract with the State was introduced in 1994 and that this maintained that arrangements for academic consultants should apply from the same date. He also claimed that UCD had acknowledged in a letter in November 2002 that there was a need to include some element of retrospection. UCD argued that any retrospection should only go back to when the consultant's claim was formalised in 2003.

"Having taken account of all the circumstances of the case the court has come to the conclusion that this aspect of the case should be resolved by making a lump sum payment to the claimant in lieu of retrospection," the Labour Court ruled in its finding.