Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Paramedic

A Health Provider

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00030024-001

01/08/2019

The complainant is an ambulance paramedic.

This case concerned a loss of earnings to the complainant occasioned by administrative delays to his undertaking the necessary qualifying training.

There were other factors which the complainant feels may also have resulted in delays, but these have not been established to his satisfaction.

In the event he submits that he is at very substantial losses of approximately €55,000.

In 2016 the respondent had acknowledged that the complainant could make a claim for loss of earnings once he had finally completed his qualification.

The complainant submits that the respondent has already accepted that the complainant did not contribute to the delays and that there was agreement in principle from a meeting on March 3rd, 2018 that compensation would be paid to the complainant.

A further meeting on July 10th, 2018 led the complainant to believe that the issue was almost resolved, but the matter did not progress from there.

The respondent did not attend the hearing. It appears that here may have been some misdirection of correspondence.

It is obvious that quite substantial progress was made between the parties but for some reason this stalled in 2018.

The delays are obviously inacceptable and yet it also seems clear that the internal process has not yet been fully exhausted, and that progress was being made.

It would be preferable, especially given the nature of the claim and the issues involved that the matter should be resolved by the parties in direct negotiation and that they should build on the apparent progress made so far.

However, they should do so quickly.

The complainant is entitled as a matter of fairness to have his claim dealt with expeditiously in keeping with the respondent’s procedures and I address this in my recommendation.

I recommend that the parties meet within twenty-one days of the date of this recommendation, or by such other time as they mutually agree, and conclude negotiations on the complainant’s claim within a maximum of forty-two days from that first meeting.

If they fail to agree after that time the matter should be returned to the Adjudication service for a hearing.

Compensation