A CASE taken by a teacher who was let go as housemaster at Blackrock College, Dublin, was dismissed by the Employment Appeals Tribunal yesterday.
Ed O’Farrell still works as a teacher at the south Dublin private and boarding school, where he has been employed since 2001, the tribunal heard.
He was let go from the role of housemaster in July 2009 because of the fall-off in boarders and a cut in the number of housemasters, the tribunal heard.
The role was to supervise, protect and monitor students, especially boarding students. The position paid €13,000 and a benefit-in-kind of shared accommodation in a five-bedroom house.
In May 2009, Mr O’Farrell was informed by the school that the post was ending and he would have to move out of the house, the tribunal heard.
Mr O’Farrell’s barrister Kevin D’Arcy said the post of housemaster, for which Mr O’Farrell was paid by the college, was a completely separate role to teaching, for which his client was paid by the Department of Education.
The school wrote to Mr O’Farrell to say he had been effectively made redundant and offered him a €5,013 statutory redundancy payment for eight years of service, Mr D’Arcy said. Mr O’Farrell did not accept the payment.
Although the terms of the teacher’s employment had been varied, he had not been dismissed, barrister for Blackrock College Tom Mallon said. Neither had the teacher opted for constructive dismissal, he said. This meant the case was outside of the tribunal’s jurisdiction, he said.
Mr O’Farrell was still employed by the school and the board of management was the only employer, even though the department paid wages, he said.
There was a concept of additional posts of responsibility in the education system, but these are not new and separate contracts of employment, he said.
The school saying that he was “in effect redundant” was “a gesture” but this was not meant in the traditional sense of redundancy, he said. If the offer of redundancy was made in error, it should not mean the case is within the jurisdiction of the tribunal, he said.
Mr Mallon mentioned other options open to the teacher, such as taking a case under the Payment of Wages Act.
Tribunal chairwoman Margaret Leavy concluded that the tribunal viewed the two posts of teacher and housemaster as one contract.
The college seemed to have unilaterally altered the contract and ill-advisedly issued redundancy forms, she said. This did not put it into the jurisdiction of the tribunal and there were other avenues that could be pursued by Mr O’Farrell, she said.
