An employment tribunal in Dublin has ruled that former television weather presenter Joan Blackburn did not have a contract of employment with RTÉ so her case of unfair dismissal against the broadcaster could not be heard.
Speaking after the ruling, Met Éireann meteorologist Ms Blackburn, who spent 13 years presenting the weather on RTÉ 1, said she had lost on a technicality.
The chairman of the Employment Appeals Tribunal, Mr Dermot McCarthy SC, ruled that despite an individual contract signed by Ms Blackburn in 1990, the only contracts that mattered in the case were the ones between Met Éireann and RTÉ.
As part of this commercial relationship Met Éireann was obliged to provide meteorological services and personnel to the State broadcaster.
"If the contract between Met Éireann and RTÉ was terminated the individual contracts would fall. For these reasons we find we cannot proceed any further with the case," he said.
He said Joan Blackburn, who was paid a monthly cheque by RTÉ, with PRSI and PAYE deducted, was a professional Met Éireann meteorologist "providing a service which the public believed to be a Met Éireann service".
"It seems to us that what is appearing on TV is a visual presentation of Joan Blackburn and the work of Met Éireann which she otherwise would have done in Glasnevin," he said.
The tribunal heard that Ms Blackburn's work for RTÉ was dependent on a roster drawn up by Met Éireann.
Staff there could volunteer to be part of the panel of television meteorologists, although the final list was chosen by RTÉ.
Ms Blackburn told the tribunal that while in RTÉ she was there on Met Éireann time.
In his judgment, Mr McCarthy said the separate agreement the broadcaster had with the meteorologist was "really an auxiliary part of the contract between Met Éireann and RTÉ".
"The work she was doing for RTÉ was an integral part of the work of Met Éireann and an integral part of the service provided under the contract by Met Éireann and RTÉ."
Ms Blackburn was one of a panel of Met Éireann staff, including Mr Gerry Fleming and Ms Evelyn Cusack, to appear regularaly on RTÉ from 1988.
In 1998, RTÉ decided to use non-meteorological presenters and last year the meteorologists were asked to audition again for their roles.
At this stage, Ms Blackburn was deselected and she took the case for unfair dismissal against RTÉ.
At a preliminary hearing last May counsel for RTÉ Mr Roddy Horan tried to block proceedings, saying that Ms Blackburn should not be allowed to pursue the case because she was a civil servant.
Yesterday, Ms Blackburn, accompanied by her husband, meteorologist Mr Pat Clarke, said she was "obviously disappointed" to have lost on what she considered a technical issue.
"RTÉ said first of all I had no right to take the case and they lost on that," she said.
"Secondly (they said) I had no contract and we also won that. And, finally they said that my terms and conditions weren't terminated. They lost on that as well. But they won on a technical point that I didn't have a contract of service with RTÉ and it is on a purely legal and technical point that they won," she said.
Asked whether she had come to the tribunal not just hoping to win lost earnings of more than €20,000 but also to appear again on television, she said:
"I came here just to prove a case and other matters would have fallen into place."