A CREDIT union office worker has secured a temporary High Court injunction preventing her employers dismissing her because she will reach 65 on Monday.
Nuala Murtagh, Shannon Grove, Ballyleague, Roscommon, claims a decision by Lanesboro-Ballyleague Credit Union Ltd, Ballyleague, Longford, to terminate her employment on age grounds and to replace her with someone younger is unlawful and in breach of a contract entered into when she took up permanent part-time employment in 1997.
Loss of her employment would leave her in very difficult financial circumstances, having taken out a 15-year mortgage 2½ years ago, Ms Murtagh said. She would never have taken out that mortgage if she thought she had to retire at 65.
Ms Justice Mary Laffoy yesterday granted Ms Murtagh an interim order restraining the credit union from implementing the dismissal. The matter was returned to Friday.
Making the ex-parte application, Roddy Horan, for Ms Murtagh, said his client’s 1997 contract entitled her to continue working provided she was doing a satisfactory job and there was no mention in it of having to retire at 65.
The credit union had made an offer whereby Ms Murtagh could apply to continue under a one-year fixed term contract after December 20th, Mr Horan added, but this was not something she could entertain because it was effectively buying into a variation of her original contract. There was no guarantee she would be successful in such an application, he added.
In an affidavit, Ms Murtagh said last August she got a letter from the credit union stating she would be reaching the age of 65 and asking her to attend a meeting to discuss her future.
At that meeting with two members of the credit union liaison committee, she was told they “wanted someone younger” to train to do her job and the office administrator’s job.
Her solicitors wrote to the credit union saying her contract was of an indefinite duration and calling on it to rescind the decision to terminate her employment. She and other colleagues later received a document outlining the credit union’s “retirement policy”.
This was the first time she was aware of any such policy which did not form part of her contract.
She was later told there would be no exceptions to the policy requiring retirement at 65, but believed that policy was “probably drafted after correspondence had been received from my solicitor”.