TV host’s equal pay row back in court
GROUP SHOWBUSINESS EDITOR THE Virgin Media case against the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) over the equal pay claim taken by former TV presenter Sinéad Desmond is listed for the High Court this week.
The court battle was initiated last year after the WRC ruled Ms Desmond was entitled to the same pay as her co-host Mark Cagney. Sources told the Irish Mail on Sunday that Virgin Media will vigorously contest the WRC decision.
Last December, lawyers acting for Virgin Media applied to the High Court seeking a judicial review and to have the decision in favour of Ms Desmond quashed.
Senior counsel for Virgin Media, Conor Power, told the presiding judge the WRC had reached their decision without an adequate or proper hearing.
Mr Justice Charles Meenan said he was satisfied there were sufficient grounds to allow for judicial review, but he also acknowledged a letter put to the court that indicated the WRC had a ‘different view’.
The case dates back to four years ago when Ms Desmond, a co-presenter on the station’s flagship breakfast show Ireland AM, departed after Virgin Media, then known as TV3, refused her equal pay claim.
Last October, the MoS revealed that Ms Desmond had won round one when the WRC ruled in her favour.
Virgin challenged Ms Desmond’s claim for equal pay with her former co-presenter Mark Cagney, saying any disparity was not gender-based.
They pointed to Mr Cagney’s ‘star quality’ and ‘established national profile’ given his involvement in the flagship programme since its inception.
Lawyers for Virgin Media claimed Mr Cagney – referred to in the ruling as Mr X – was the show’s ‘star anchor’ and, nobody else could have performed his role with the same effect.
Virgin said that Ms Desmond had been an employee since 2006 while Mr Cagney was engaged on foot of an independent commercial contract negotiated at ‘arm’s length’ through a registered company and as such was not a ‘valid comparator’ for an equal pay claim.
However, the WRC concluded that Mr Cagney, who had no involvement in the case, was an employee of Virgin Media.
In a written decision of September 16, the WRC found that ‘Mr X’ was a ‘valid comparator’, thus clearing the way for Ms Desmond’s claim to progress to a full hearing of her pay claim.