A Dublin man has lost a court action over his failure to get a senior post in Northern Ireland.
Mr Edward Michael O'Boyle (42), from Rathgar, applied for the position of deputy chief fire officer for Northern Ireland but his application was rejected because he was not a United Kingdom national.
He challenged the ruling in an application for a judicial review in the High Court in Belfast, but his case was dismissed by Mr Justice Kerr. The judge held that the £55,000 a year job was a public service post which removed it from the EU treaty governing freedom of movement for workers.
In his reserved judgment, Mr Justice Kerr said Mr O'Boyle applied for the post notwithstanding a passage in the advertisement stating that applicants "must be UK nationals as the post is classified as public service".
During the hearing, his lawyer, Mr Michael Lavery QC, said the effect of the exclusion was to discriminate against applicants from the Republic. He said that when the NI Safeguarding of Employment Act disappeared, the authorities introduced a non-UK nationals rule for senior public posts which did not apply in the rest of the UK.
"The object was to reduce the risk of Catholics getting jobs in Northern Ireland and therefore safeguard the unionist majority," Mr Lavery said.
The judicial review was Mr O'Boyle's second court action arising out of his failure to get a senior post with the Northern fire authority. In 1995 he also claimed nationality discrimination when he was turned down for the post of chief fire officer on the grounds that he was not properly qualified. The case was settled and he received undisclosed compensation.