THE Labour Court has described as "absurd" a claim by a consultant surgeon at Ennis general hospital that he be paid an extra day's pay for doing five minutes' emergency work on St Patrick's Day.
The 200,000-per-year surgeon, Gerry Byrnes, acknowledged that he received an on-call allowance of 31.47 for coming in to do emergency work on St Patrick's Day in 2003 and a further 136.78 in fees in respect of his emergency treatment of two patients on the day. He also received an "emergency oncall payment" of more than 3,500 a year and a 5,278 annual payment because of the onerous rota he was on in Ennis.
But Byrnes claimed that in line with the Holidays Act, which gives workers an extra day's pay or an extra day's leave if they work on a public holiday, he was entitled to further payment because he was called in on St Patrick's Day.
Kevin Duffy of the Labour Court said the Holidays Act never intended that "a person who attends work for one hour. . . in a day is entitled to an additional full day's pay or an additional full day off in lieu of the time worked".
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