Leaving Cert supervisor loses case over mileage expenses

A Leaving Cert supervisor who drove a longer route to work because he said he could not risk getting caught behind silage traffic on back roads on his way to State exams has failed in a legal claim following a three-year row over mileage expenses.

The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has rejected a complaint by the supervisor, Daniel Murphy, seeking over €1,600 for the extra milage from the State Examinations Commission (SEC) - which an official had called "excessive".

Mr Murphy, who gave an address in Monaghan, told the WRC at a hearing earlier this year that he had been posted to supervise the exams at St Ciaran’s Community School in Kells, Co Meath, since 2021.

"The problem with Kells is it’s kind of cross-country from Monaghan. There are about seven or eight different routes I can get to Kells, but they’re along minor roads in pretty bad repair," he said.

His view was that "any rational person" would go via the N2.

However, he said that when he claimed milage for the journey via this route he found his claims being reduced.

Mr Murphy said that in 2021 he was paid for 629 kilometres less than he travelled, a payment worth €522 at €0.83 a kilometre, he said.

He added that he was left short by €550 following his work for the SEC in 2022 and by €574.20 in 2023.

"The State Exams Commission seems to ask Google Maps to give the shortest distance between two Eircodes and say that is the way you should have gone," Mr Murphy said.

"It might be a shorter route, but it would not be a route that a sensible person would take," he added.

The position of the State was that "all official travel should be by the shortest practicable routes and by the cheapest practicable mode of conveyance".

Responding to the claim, Yvonne Shanley, an acting assistant principal officer at the SEC, argued that a mileage claim did not fall under the definition of wages in the Payment of Wages Act and that the tribunal did not have jurisdiction to look at alleged pay deductions as far back as 2022 or 2021.

"We have to implement the regulations. People can have a personal choice and go a longer route, but we can only pay what [the Department of Finance] allows us," Ms Shanley said.

Mr Murphy said: "I don’t want to be driving on minor back roads where I could get stuck behind silage traffic in the month of June and endure long delays."

Adjudicator Christina Ryan concluded that the sums claimed by Mr Murphy were expenses rather than wages and were therefore not covered by the legislation.

She dismissed his complaint as being "not well founded".