Seven civil servants who were redeployed to Department of Agriculture offices 11 years ago but were given no work to do have secured leave from the High Court to challenge a Government decision to pension them off.
Mr Justice Butler granted the men leave to seek an order, by way of judicial review, quashing Government decisions of March 20th last which removed them as established civil servants and applied the terms of the Superannuation and Pensions Act 1963 to them.
The case is over a dispute which began in 1987 when the government decided to reassign estates officers in the Land Commission (which included the seven men) to other work.
The seven are: Mr Denis Murphy, Rosbarra, Deerpark, Cork; Mr David Crowley, Oakley Park, Tullow Road, Carlow; Mr Stephen Kenny, Larchfield Avenue, Penmore, Co Galway; Mr Enda McGowan, Kirryfottle, Cavan; Mr Seamus O'Leary, Rigsdale, Ballinhassig, Co Cork; Mr Laurence McCarroll, Eskragh, Omagh, Co Tyrone and Mr Christopher Reid, Petitswood Close, Mullingar, Co Westmeath.
In an affidavit, Mr Eamon Murray, solicitor for the seven, said his clients understood that, as estates officers, they would be assigned to agricultural duties. That was the position until 1987 when the government sought to reassign them to the Department of Justice.
Following High Court proceedings, settlement terms were reached in 1990 with the Minister for Agriculture and Food, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Justice. The officers, including the seven bringing the current proceedings, were told to attend at various local offices of the Department of Agriculture from January 1991.
While the men were given office accommodation, they were not given any work to do and no one in authority would accept responsibility for them, Mr Murray said. The men had informed him their salaries were artificially suppressed and they were deprived of certain terms of national wage agreements.
Various proposals were made to the seven by Government departments between 1992 and 1998 concerning redeployment, and/or early retirement. The seven had considered the terms of various proposals as unreasonable and in breach of the terms of settlement arrived at in 1990.
Then, last March, the seven were told the Government had decided their grade should be abolished, their service terminated and they should receive a pension. Mr Murray said he believed the men's constitutional rights to fair procedures had been infringed and there had been a breach of their contracts.