Courts

Former Sinn Féin councillor challenges refusal of teacher salary credit scheme

Dr Toiréasa Ní Fhearaíosa applied for salary credits for past employment, but application was refused on grounds including that some of the work was unpaid

Dr Toiréasa Ní Fhearaíosa is a full-time law teacher and course co-ordinator at Kerry Education and Training Board. She is also a former Sinn Féin councillor and was the party’s unsuccessful candidate in the 2009 European Parliament elections. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

Aodhan O'Faolain
Mon Jun 24 2024 - 20:43

A law teacher and former county councillor has brought a High Court challenge over a refusal to grant her incremental salary credits for former roles she carried out.

Dr Toiréasa Ní Fhearaíosa is a full-time law teacher and course co-ordinator at Kerry Education and Training Board (ETB). She is also a former Sinn Féin councillor, former cathaoirleach of Kerry County Council, and was the party’s unsuccessful candidate in the 2009 elections for the European Parliament. Her father Martin Ferris is a former TD for Kerry.

In 2022 she applied for a scheme granting teachers salary credits, known as the Scheme for the Award of Incremental Credit to Teachers at Second Level.

The credits recognise a teacher’s past employment in Ireland or in another EU member state. The scheme can also award credits for reckonable service, including non-teaching experiences.

READ MORE

The court heard she began working for Kerry ETB in 2003 and has been employed on a contract of indefinite duration since 2011. She currently teaches subjects including business law, criminal law, ethics and conflict resolution.

She applied for salary credits for her past employment, including six months in 2001 when she worked as an accounts payable assistant with a company called Ingredients Kerry de Mexico.

She also sought credits for three months in 2002 when she worked as an intern and legal researcher for US law firm D’Amato, Keegan and Duggan, and for three months in 2003 when she worked as a constituency advice clinic manager for Sinn Féin.

She further sought credits for the period between September 2003 and January 2007, when she was an elected member of Kerry County Council.

She claims the applications made under the scheme are decided on by the Minister for Education.

However, her application was refused on grounds including that her work with Ingredients Kerry de Mexico was not relevant, and that her employment with Kerry County Council was “not remunerated under a full-time contract of employment, certified by the employer at the time to have been satisfactory”.

Her time as a Sinn Féin advice clinic manager was deemed not to fall within the scope of the scheme, as it was unpaid.

No reference was made to her time at the US law firm, which at the time of her application no longer existed due to the death of the firm’s principals in 2014.

She appealed that decision to a committee empanelled by the Minister for Education and made submissions challenging the reasons for the refusal. Last March, the appeal committee informed her that it was upholding the department’s decision.

In proceedings against the Minister for Education and the Appeal Committee, the applicant claims the committee’s decision is flawed and should be set aside on grounds including that there was a failure by it to provide reasons for its findings.

The decision was also irrational and unreasonable, and was made in breach of fair procedures, she argues.

It is further argued that the scheme is unlawful on the grounds that it excludes from consideration periods in public office, or periods spent in the employment of persons who are deceased or defunct.

Kerry ETB is a notice party to the judicial review proceedings.

Represented by Mark Harty SC, with James Kane BL, the applicant seeks various orders and declarations from the court including an order quashing the respondent’s decision to uphold findings, communicated to her in March 2024, that she is not entitled to the incremental salary credits sought for her past employment.

She also seeks a declaration that the scheme is unlawful and if necessary an order striking down parts of the scheme.

The matter came before Ms Justice Niamh Hyland on Monday. The judge, on an ex parte basis, granted the applicant leave to bring her challenge.

The matter will return before the court in July.

LATEST STORIES