The Employment Appeals Tribunal has awarded €20,000 in compensation on top of payments of €60,000 already received by an abattoir worker following his redundancy.

In its view, a reasonable alternative to redundancy was not offered to the claimant. “If the respondent had genuinely wanted to redeploy the claimant, it should have come up with specific proposals with regard to rates of pay … or compensation.”

“While the claimant did not come back to his employer regarding those issues, the reality is (that) the onus is on the employer to work out what specifics it proposes to take in such a situation and put those suggestions to the claimant. The respondent failed to do that and consequently, the claim succeeds.”