The Irish Times and its legal team were criticised by a Fair Employment Tribunal in Belfast yesterday for their failure to provide documents to the representatives of one of its journalists taking action for alleged discrimination.
Tribunal chairman Mr Neil Drennan QC said he was "horrified" original documents he said should be delivered to the tribunal by yesterday morning were still in Dublin.
Irish Times journalist Ms Suzanne Breen has taken her employer to the tribunal, accusing it of religious, sexual and political discrimination and victimisation.
While her lawyers want to start the case immediately, The Irish Times made an application on Monday to have it postponed to a later date.
The tribunal was expected to rule on the application yesterday, but a decision was again put off until today after a wrangle about the missing documents.
Mr Drennan said he found it "extraordinary" that, after all he had said on Monday about getting the documents to Belfast, they were still in Dublin.
"I am just horrified no attempt was made to get the documents here, it seems to me extraordinary," he said.
He gave the newspaper and its legal representatives until close of business yesterday to have them delivered, adding: "The car has been invented."
Ms Breen's case centres on her non-appointment as the Belfast-based deputy Northern editor of the paper in 2001, not being allowed thereafter to act up as Northern editor when the editor was absent - even though she had previously done so - and her subsequent failure to be appointed to the post of Northern news editor.
The tribunal heard on Monday that the consequence of her failure to get either job resulted in her being transferred, against her will, to the Dublin head office when the Belfast staff was reduced as part of a cost-cutting exercise.
She had spent five hours a day commuting between her Belfast home and Dublin for five months, before going off on sick leave in December suffering from stress, the tribunal heard.
The case had been listed for this week, but it was revealed on Monday that it is now expected to last for two to three weeks.
Even if the case does begin today, it can sit until lunchtime on Friday only before adjourning until June, because of other cases the tribunal is already committed to hearing in the interim. - (PA)