A former employee of market research company Ipsos MRBI was selected for redundancy after it became "inevitable" that his job was to be increasingly superfluous due to advances in technology, an employment appeals tribunal has heard.
According to Ipsos MRBI managing director Damian Loscher - who testified earlier today before the tribunal - developments in technology, coupled with the recession, led to Brian O'Riordan from Finglas Co Dublin, being made redundant in his position as a data entry clerk. Mr O'Riordan had held the job for over 11 years at the time of his being made redundant in March of 2010.
Mr Loscher explained to the tribunal that Mr O'Riordan's primary tasks would have included inputing data collected from interviews into the computer system as well as filing and retrieving the original marking paper used in those interviews for use in the future.
However, online questionnaires and interviews conducted with portable electronic devices such as laptops and tablets, were becoming more popular, he said.
This was because these methods were more cost effective in that they bypassed the need for a data entry clerk entirely as the data was inputed directly into the system at the point of questioning, he told the tribunal.
"The rise in online questionnaires was very predictable ...it was inevitable. What was driving it was simply costs."
While developments in technology were making Mr O'Riordan's role less important to the running of the company, the effects of the recession were also being felt on revenue, said Mr Loscher.
He told the tribunal that from a high point in 2008 when turnover for the company reached €6.5 million, by 2010 it had fallen to €5.1 million.
In late 2009 "it became apparent that redundancies would be necessary" and the company began to look at ways it could be more efficient with a smaller workforce.
The tribunal heard that due to the decrease in business as well as the changing nature of market research, it became increasingly likely that there would be times when a data entry clerk would not have enough work to justify it as a full time position.
Mr Loscher said that, as managing director of the company, he had "made sure to regularly communicate with staff" about processes that would affect them and met personally with every full-time employee of the company during this time.
The hearing resumes on March 26th.