Holiday pay cases in Northern Ireland could take 14 years to resolve

In a memo circulated to the tribunal’s users group, president of the tribunals, Noel Kelly, said there are some 190,229 holiday pay claims in Northern Ireland, the Irish News reports.

The letter followed a judgment of the court dismissing the PSNI’s appeal in the Agnew case. The PSNI had appealed a 2019 Court of Appeal ruling to uphold a tribunal decision that officers and civilian staff were owed for a shortfall in holiday pay dating back to 1998.

Legal experts have said that the ruling is a significant one for employers who failed to increase holiday pay following decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Mr Kelly said that if 95 per cent of claims settle then the remaining five per cent would still generate around 650 cases.

Accounting for five days of case management, hearing and decision writing, a single tribunal could sit for 14 years solely on holiday claims.

“And this again may well be an optimistic estimate,” he added.

“If four separate tribunals sat consistently on holiday pay cases and on nothing else, that would result in those tribunals sitting for approximately 3.5 years.”

“The tribunal is currently under significant pressure,” he said. “There is simply no spare capacity.”

As is stands, the tribunal has 7.5 full-time employment judges as well as some fee-paid ones. Mr Kelly said the number of fee-paid judges would be increased but that it will depend on availability.

“There is clearly a need for additional full-time employment judges to be appointed,” he noted.

He said, however, that “it is unrealistic to expect any imminent change” and that “the only way forward is a broad brush approach to such settlements”.

“There will have to be standard payments agreed between the respondents and the claimants in respect of different grades, length of service etc. There will inevitably be some winners or losers but there does not appear to be any alternative.”