Railways Act, 1924

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Third Schedule.

Existing Officers and Servants.

Sections 4 (f), 6 (f), and 12 (2).

Every person who on the 3rd day of April, 1924, was for a period of less than five years an officer or servant of any amalgamating company or absorbed company, and who shall not, prior to the amalgamation or absorption of such amalgamating or absorbed company, have voluntarily retired or have been removed from the service of any such amalgamating or absorbed company by reason of misconduct or incapacity and who does not become an officer or servant of the amalgamated company, shall be entitled to a gratuity calculated on the basis of one-sixth of the amount of his annual salary and emoluments for every completed year of his service.

The following provisions shall apply in respect to persons who on the 3rd day of April, 1924, were, and for a period of not less than five years have been, officers or servants of any amalgamating company or absorbed company, and who shall not, prior to the amalgamation or absorption of such amalgamating or absorbed company, have become pensioners or annuitants in accordance with the rules of any railway pension or superannuation fund of which they may be members, or have voluntarily retired, or have been removed from the service of any such amalgamating or absorbed company by reason of misconduct or incapacity (all of which officers and servants are in this Schedule hereinafter referred to as “existing officers and servants”):—

(1) Every existing officer and servant shall, as from the date of amalgamation or absorption, become an officer or servant of the amalgamated company.

(2) The amalgamated company may abolish the office or situation of any existing officer or servant which they may deem unnecessary, and any existing officer or servant required to perform duties such as are not analogous or which are an unreasonable addition to those which as an officer or servant of the company from which he was transferred he was required to perform may relinquish his office or situation.

(3) No existing officer or servant so transferred shall without his consent be by reason of such transfer in any worse position in respect to the conditions of his service as a whole (including tenure of office, remuneration, gratuities, pension, superannuation, sick fund or any benefits or allowances, whether obtaining legally or by customary practice of the amalgamating or absorbed company) as compared with the conditions of service formerly obtaining with respect to him.

(4) If any existing officer or servant so transferred is, without his consent, in any such worse position as aforesaid by reason of such transfer and has thereby suffered any loss or injury, he shall be entitled to be paid by the amalgamated company such lump sum as would reasonably compensate him for such loss or injury, the amount of such lump sum to be determined by the amalgamated company (subject to appeal as hereinafter provided).

(5) Every existing officer or servant whose office or situation is so abolished, or who so relinquishes his office or situation, or whose services are dispensed with on the ground that they are not required or for any other reason not being on account of any misconduct or incapacity, or whose remuneration or emoluments are reduced on the ground that his duties have been diminished, or who otherwise suffers any direct pecuniary loss by reason of the amalgamation or absorption (including any loss of prospective superannuation or other retiring or death allowances and allowances to his widow or orphan children, whether obtaining legally or by customary practice of the amalgamating or absorbed company), shall be entitled to be paid compensation by the amalgamated company, the amount of such compensation to be determined by the amalgamated company (subject to appeal as hereinafter provided) in accordance with the following rules, that is to say:—

(a) the compensation shall be an annual allowance to be paid to the existing officer or servant during his life not exceeding in any case two-thirds of his remuneration and emoluments, and, subject to that limitation, to be calculated at the rate of one-sixtieth of his remuneration and emoluments for every completed year of his service with the amalgamated company or any amalgamating or absorbed company, with an addition thereto based on the number of completed years of his service and calculated according to the following scale:—

if he has twenty or more completed years of service, an addition of ten-sixtieths of his remuneration and emoluments,

if he has fifteen or more completed years of service and less than twenty such years, an addition of seven-sixtieths of his remuneration and emoluments,

if he has ten or more completed years of service and less than fifteen such years, an addition of five-sixtieths of his remuneration and emoluments,

if he has five or more completed years of service and less than ten such years, an addition of three-sixtieths of his remuneration and emoluments:

(b) where any existing officer or servant was temporarily absent from his employment as such officer or servant and during the whole of such absence was engaged in service in the National Forces of Saorstát Eireann, or any military forces serving under the authority of the First Dáil Eireann, the Second Dáil Eireann, or the Provisional Government of Ireland, or the British Army, Navy or Air Force, such temporary absence shall for the purposes of this Schedule be reckoned and included in his period of service as such officer or servant:

(c) in the case of an existing officer or servant who was appointed to his office as a specially qualified person at an age exceeding that at which railway service usually begins, his actual period of service with an amalgamating or absorbed company may be increased by the addition of such number of years as may seem just, having regard to the particular circumstances of the case, and thereupon his compensation shall be calculated on such increased period of service:

(d) in the case of an existing officer or servant who suffers any such loss of prospective superannuation or other retiring or death allowance as aforesaid, such addition as may seem just, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, may be made to the compensation otherwise authorised by this Schedule to be awarded to him:

(e) for the purpose of the calculation of the compensation under this Schedule, the remuneration and emoluments of an existing officer or servant shall be taken to be the annual value of the remuneration and emoluments of which he was in receipt from the amalgamated company or any amalgamating or absorbed company on the date of the happening of the event giving rise to the claim for compensation, unless he received promotion (other than promotion within any of the grades dealt with in the agreements between the railway companies and the trades unions) subsequent to the 3rd day of April, 1923, in which case his remuneration and emoluments shall for the purpose aforesaid be taken to be the annual value of the remuneration and emoluments of which he was in receipt immediately before such promotion. In the event of an existing officer being appointed a standing member of the railway tribunal he shall be regarded as an existing officer whose office is abolished as from the date of amalgamation and shall be entitled to be compensated accordingly, but during the period for which he acts as such standing member of the railway tribunal his compensation shall only be the difference (if any) between his remuneration as a standing member of the railway tribunal and the annual allowance granted to him under paragraph (5) (a) of this Schedule.

(6) For the purpose of this Schedule, any solicitor who for the period of five years next before the date of the passing of this Act has acted solely for an amalgamating or absorbed company as their chief or assistant legal adviser on a salary shall be deemed to be an existing officer of that company.

(7) Any person who is in receipt of an annual allowance by way of compensation under this Schedule may, within one year from the date on which the amount of such allowance is fixed, apply to the amalgamated company to commute not more than one-fourth of such annual allowance by payment of a capital sum of money to be calculated by the amalgamated company in accordance with the provision in that behalf contained in the amalgamation scheme, and no such application for commutation shall be unreasonably refused by the amalgamated company.

(8) If any existing officer or servant shall feel aggrieved by the decision of the amalgamated company on any matter to be determined by it under the foregoing rules, or if any dispute or question shall arise between any existing officer or servant and the amalgamated company on any matter arising under this Schedule, such existing officer or servant may appeal to a standing arbitrator or board of arbitrators appointed by the Chief Justice, who shall hear and determine such appeal and whose decision thereon shall be final. The amount of the fee payable to such standing arbitrator or to each member of such board of arbitrators on any such appeal shall be fixed by the Chief Justice and shall be paid by the amalgamated company.

(9) For the purposes of this Schedule every person in the employment of an amalgamating company or an absorbed company shall be deemed to be an officer or servant of that company: Subject in the case of any solicitor to the provisions of paragraph (6) of this Schedule.