{"id":597616,"date":"2026-07-21T23:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T23:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/597616\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T23:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T23:37:15","slug":"esb-worker-too-late-to-pursue-claim-seeking-e42000-in-alleged-unpaid-overtime-wrc-rules-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/597616\/","title":{"rendered":"ESB worker too late to pursue claim seeking \u20ac42,000 in alleged unpaid overtime, WRC rules \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An ESB<\/a> worker is out of time to pursue a pay claim seeking \u20ac42,000 he alleged was due as overtime \u2013 a figure management at the utility said was \u201cexaggerated\u201d, a tribunal has ruled.<\/p>\n

The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC)<\/a> has concluded that training officer Peter Lavelle was too late to pursue a complaint against ESB Networks DAC under the Payment of Wages Act 1997 challenging a 2023 pay policy change at the utility. <\/p>\n

Lavelle\u2019s trade union, Connect, submitted that he was left short by \u20ac42,000 between November 2023 and July 2025 because of a \u201cunilateral\u201d decision to stop paying overtime for time spent on the road. <\/p>\n

After eight years\u2019 service as a network engineer based in Wilton, Cork City, Lavelle was promoted in 2022 to a new job with duties at a company training centre in Portlaoise, the tribunal heard. <\/p>\n

For his first two years in the post, he received overtime for travel to Portlaoise and other training sites, with management approval. <\/p>\n

Historically, he said, \u201cany travel away from a normal place of work\u201d was paid as overtime. <\/p>\n

This changed in November 2023, when overtime payments for travel time were stopped and there were also changes to subsistence arrangements, he said. <\/p>\n

\"\"Will the State\u2019s plan for the Carlton Cinema site revitalise O\u2019Connell Street?<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have taken the job if I knew that was going to happen,\u201d Lavelle said. <\/p>\n

He said he faced \u201csignificant\u201d levels of travel daily from Cork to Portlaoise, setting out from home at 6am and not returning until \u201clate in the evening\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s not a commute. It is a business journey,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Claire Purcell, an ESB employee relations officer, said travel-related overtime payments had been \u201can incorrect practice\u201d which had developed. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that the figures claimed by the complainant are exaggerated,\u201d Purcell said. <\/p>\n

Lavelle received \u20ac5,927 for 116.5 hours\u2019 overtime and 178 overnight allowances worth \u20ac26,048 in 2022, she said. <\/p>\n

He was paid a further \u20ac3,862 for 72 hours\u2019 overtime and 200 overnight allowances worth \u20ac29,253 in 2023, she added. <\/p>\n

The overnight arrangements \u201csignificantly reduced\u201d the need for Lavelle to travel, the witness said. <\/p>\n

Lavelle was still receiving mileage expenses, and there was also a \u20ac5,000 annually allowance granted to training officers in the spring of 2024, backdated to the previous November, she added. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were paying overtime for travel time it was nowhere near the amount that we\u2019re seeing here today,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

Caroline Doyle, appearing instructed by the ESB\u2019s legal department, argued Lavelle was too late to pursue a complaint in July 2025 seeking to challenge a decision taken in November 2023. <\/p>\n

Darren Erangey of the Connect trade union, for Lavelle, argued the breach was ongoing. <\/p>\n

Adjudication officer Thomas O\u2019Driscoll ruled in a decision published on Tuesday that the complaint was out of time and therefore outside his jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

He noted the \u201cclear and unambiguous evidence\u201d of Keith Kavanagh, a technical training manager, that the ESB made and communicated a decision to stop overtime for travelling in November 2023. <\/p>\n

He did not consider ongoing alleged financial losses to amount to a continuing breach, and ruled that Lavelle\u2019s recourse to the internal grievance process could not extend the time limit. <\/p>\n

Lavelle\u2019s complaint of July 2025 was \u201cwell outside the statutory time limit\u201d, even if an extension from six months to 12 could be granted for reasonable circumstances justifying a delay, which were not established, he wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe complaint is out of time and that I do not have jurisdiction to entertain it,\u201d O\u2019Driscoll concluded. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An ESB worker is out of time to pursue a pay claim seeking \u20ac42,000 he alleged was due…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,52737,19,17,80,81],"class_list":["post-597616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-esb","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-work","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116960602149912690","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}