Rights of 5 year employee on fixed term contracts

A friend of mine has worked for a local authority on a number of rolling fixed term contracts for the past 5 years, and they plan to release her when her current contract expires in a few weeks with no redundancy.

I understood that there is a precedent that staff on such contracts who have been working for >4 years have the same rights as permanent staff, and so she would be entitled to redundancy if not to keep her job. However, HR in the Council is rejecting this (another person is bringing them to the Labour Court on this same issue).

Does anybody have any further info on this precedent ?

Thanks, JR

The relevant legislation is the EU fixed term workers' directive which is part of Irish legislation since 2004 (I think). Your friend should consult an employment solicitor and also investigate the cases on the Labour court website.

I'd formally write to HR asking for a CID. Then lodge a claim with the Rights Commissioner. If she is a member of a union I'd suggest she contact them also.

On the face of it it looks like she has aquired rights to a CID.

However, the contracts maybe in order and the employer may have an objective reason for issuing a series of fixed term contracts and in turn an objective reason for not renewing.

An example of an objective reason is a project is now complete. Whether budgetary reasons (which I assume this is) would stand up isn't one I would be prepared to answer without examining every contract.

The following is a good guide.

[broken link removed]

This one is more recent and while is was a guide for NCHD contracts, it can be referred to for all types of employees.

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If I am reading your post right, I am guesssing she had a years contract and at the end of that year it was renewed and this carried on for 5 years. Now they have decided that they no longer need her and are not renewing her contract. Unless they replace her with someone else they have every right to do this. her contract is a yearly basis and therefore at the end of they year they would have the right to terminate her employment. the fact that she has been tehre 5 years is irrelevant i would say as it would go on her contract..which is for a year.