Health

Paramedics who returned to work during pandemic hit with pay deductions, WRC hears

One worker says HSE threatened to deduct €5,000 over what it claimed was a payroll error

Paramedics at the Mater hospital (Brian Lawless/PA)

Stephen Bourke
Thu Jul 28 2022 - 19:27

Paramedics who agreed to return to work in response to the Covid-19 pandemic have been hit with pay deductions by the HSE, the Workplace Relations Commission has heard.

The WRC has heard the case of one such paramedic, who came back from injury leave to work on Covid-19 testing when the pandemic broke out. He claims the HSE threatened to deduct a lump sum of nearly €5,000 from his pay to claw back what it says was a payroll error.

Dave Lanigan disputes the lawfulness of the deduction and maintains he was entitled to the money. The WRC has heard Mr Lanigan is one of at least 10 paramedics who have been hit with such pay deductions.

He has lodged complaints under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act and the Payment of Wages Act against the National Ambulance Service, claiming that he was not informed of any changes to his working hours when he started back that would have affected his entitlement to a shift allowance.

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The HSE has responded to the claim, albeit while arguing that the National Ambulance Service is not a legal entity, and denies any breach.

Its solicitor has argued that the complaint is not entirely within the jurisdiction of the WRC, as the balance of the sum in dispute has not yet been deducted from Mr Lanigan’s pay and the complaint was taken too late in respect of the alleged breaches.

Testing work

At a hearing on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Lanigan said he had been “harassing” the HSE to bring him back to work on light duties since 2016, following a workplace injury that left him unable to work in the frontline ambulance service.

In April 2020 he got a call from his line manager at the Portlaoise ambulance base asking him to come to a Friday meeting in the base’s car park.

He agreed he would work on testing and started full-time on mobile testing just three working days later, calling out to suspected Covid-19 patients too ill or infirm to attend test centres, he said.

He was initially rostered for a shift starting at 1pm and finishing at 11pm, which he said qualified him for the shift allowance.

It was the HSE’s case that paramedics were only entitled to receive a shift working allowance — a bonus of one sixth of their pay — if they were rostered to start work at a time earlier than 8am or later than noon as part of a regular working pattern.

Mr Lanigan said he continued on these duties until January 2021, when he was met by a manager who told him the shift allowance was being taken away.

He said his response was that he would continue working as instructed. When he lodged a grievance about the situation he was presented with a notification that the HSE would be recovering a sum of €4,944.31.

He said that he felt he had the choice between agreeing to a repayment plan or having the entire sum deducted as a lump sum, which would effectively leave him without pay for eight weeks.

Mr Lanigan, who said he had three children at home to support, said he felt this would mean financial hardship and opted for an instalment plan of €50 per fortnight to lessen the impact.

“It wasn’t an agreement or by consent,” he said.

He said he tried to raise a grievance about it: “I said, this is what I can afford because if it’s taken out all at once it’s eight weeks with no salary, which is unaffordable for anybody,” Mr Lanigan told the tribunal.

Refused to sign

He added that in February 2021, after he attempted to lodge a grievance about the situation, he was presented with a document setting out his duties, backdated to April 2020.

Mr Lanigan said he refused to sign this. He was cross-examination by Loughlin Deegan, employment law partner with Byrne Wallace LLP, who appeared for the respondent.

Mr Lanigan told Mr Deegan that he was not aware of the contents of the collective agreement struck with trade unions representing ambulance workers in 1978. He said he wasn’t a member of any official trade union.

Emily Mahon, National Ambulance Service HR manager, gave evidence that management discovered at a certain point that shift payments had been made in error to one paramedic who had returned to work for Covid duties when the pandemic hit.

Further investigations uncovered that a total of 10 people were receiving the bonus, including Mr Lanigan, she said.

“A change to a roster is a change to a work schedule. It’s not a change to terms and conditions of employment,” she said.

In closing, Mr Deegan said there was “no contractual entitlement” to work shifts and that a change in roster did not amount to a change in contracted terms of employment, even where there was a loss of a shift allowance.

Ms Moloney said her client was entitled to the shift rate when he started the testing duties and that he ought to have been properly informed of any change to his entitlement to the shift allowance when he took up the new hours in April 2020.

“Any suggestion it’s statute-barred should be dismissed,” she added.

Adjudicating officer Maria Kelly BL closed the hearing to consider her decision, which she said would be issued to the parties in due course and published a fortnight thereafter.

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