A long-serving member of the Labour Court who was let go when the body was reduced from four divisions to three has accused the State of unfair dismissal.Peter DR Murphy, a veteran of 18-and-a-half years service on the court as an employers’ nominee, is pursuing a complaint at the Workplace Relations Commission under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the Minister for Enterprise.The case was put back on Monday after the State failed to convince an adjudicator at the WRC to make a “request” of the press not to identify unspecified parties who might be named in the course of the case.The application was strongly opposed by Murphy’s legal team.Frances Meenan SC, appearing with Des Ryan BL for the State, asked adjudicator Christina Ryan to “request” the press not to identify any persons not present in the hearing room or giving evidence in any news reports on the matter.“It’s just to protect the privacy of other people,” Meenan said.Tiernan Lowey BL, for Murphy, said: “We are against the request, because we believe in the normal course, the default position should be that justice should be administered in public.”“My client has a right to a full public hearing,” he added.Meenan said: “I think it is reasonable that if there are names of persons who are not party to these proceedings that their good name, their name should not be mentioned in the press.”Lowey said Ryan was being put in an “invidious position” and that the press was “entitled to report without amendment or modification”.Ryan said it seemed the application by the State was being moved “in the absence of there being a legal basis for such a request”.She confirmed she was making no such request.Lowey said his side wanted time to respond to preliminary objections raised by the State in legal papers filed to the WRC.“The State is trying to say it wasn’t a dismissal; it was a decision by a nominating body not to nominate ... we have an awful lot to say on that,” he said.Meenan said the “fundamental issue in this case” was that the appointment of an ordinary member of the Labour Court was “conditional on the nomination by either the Irish Congress of Trade Unions or the Irish Business and Employers’ Confederation.Lowey said there had “never been a nomination requirement” when his client’s warrant was renewed for new terms going back to 2008.He said the State had not yet addressed various points on the substance of the claims raised as directed by the adjudicator at an earlier case management conference.Frances Meenan SC, for the State, said: “This is grossly unfair. The complainant filed his complaint forms; we responded by submission to those claims, and that is exactly what you have in front of you.”Adjudicator Christina Ryan has adjourned the matter so that the parties can file further submissions, with the matter now not set to resume until the autumn.Murphy has further alleged breaches of his rights under the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act, the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act and the Redundancy Payments Act.