A Workplace Relations Commission adjudication hearing has been halted after the respondent’s witness joined the video call from a busy train.
The adjudication officer in Ireland – equivalent to an employment tribunal judge in Britain – said it “would not be satisfactory to continue” the hearing due to background noise.
The hearing into Kate Rellis’s case, a complaint under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 against South East Technological University Student Union (SETUSU), was being held by video conference yesterday but was soon adjourned.
SETUSU president Erin Foley had joined the adjudication hearing from a car, while the union’s welfare officer Lucy Kate Bosch dialled in from a moving train.
RTÉ reported that adjudication officer Gaye Cunningham said: “While we say that our hearings are otherwise than in private… our hearings are not being held in public streets or transit. When you go off mute, I seem to be hearing other passengers in the train.”
“I apologise for the noise. I’m currently travelling to Galway for work at the moment,” Bosch said.
Cunningham said: “I can hear a lot of background noise. I can’t continue a hearing in the circumstances.”
Cunningham told the SETUSU officers: “You could have applied for a postponement. If a person is not available to take part in a hearing in what I’d call a safe setting, I can’t continue.
“It’s not satisfactory that people are in a train where it’s very noisy,” she added.
“You might as well be out on the main street. You must be in a fairly safe setting, an office setting, on the next date. I’d appreciate if the respondents would pay attention to the fact that you need to be in a reasonably formal setting. We’ll resume as soon as we can,” the adjudicator said.
She adjourned the hearing, saying it would be rescheduled as soon as possible.
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