Members

Sarah Havlin is a solicitor by profession with an extensive background in employment law and relations, particularly in collective disputes and trade union affairs, and 15 years of experience in both regulation and in judicial and quasi-judicial roles. For ten years she was the Certification Officer of Northern Ireland, the statutory regulator of trade unions and employer associations. She is also a former Chairman of the Agricultural Wages Board, a statutory collective bargaining authority setting terms and conditions of pay for agricultural workers.

Sarah has also acted in a variety of other roles at senior level of government including as Independent Advisor to the Minister on the setting of terms and conditions of remuneration and schemes of allowance for elected local government representatives. Since 2019, Sarah has been the Deputy Chairman of the Central Arbitration Committee in London (The Industrial Court of Great Britain). She also sits as a Tribunal Chairman in several other formal inquisitorial processes including the Exceptional Circumstances Tribunal (Education) the Independent Review of Decisions Panel (Agriculture) and previously she sat as a Parades Commissioner for Northern Ireland for seven years.

Sarah also has specialist expertise in electoral law and policy in Northern Ireland and has served both as Local Government Boundary Commissioner for Northern Ireland and as Parliamentary Boundary Commissioner for Northern Ireland, and she has led and delivered several complex Inquiries and Reviews in the context of electoral boundaries to both the Stormont Assembly and the Westminster Parliament between 2008 and 2023.

In 2022, Sarah was commissioned by the Scottish Government in its preparation of the Tied Pubs (Scotland) Bill, as Shadow Scottish Pubs Code Adjudicator; a policy initiative to bring regulation, fairness, and transparency to the commercial working relationship between pub owning companies and tied tenants in Scotland. As well as her professional legal career, Sarah has spent several years as an associate lecturer in Law with the Open University and as a visiting tutor at the Institute of Professional Legal Studies at Queens University, Belfast. She is accredited in advanced advocacy by the Law Society of Northern Ireland and the National Institute of Trial Advocates, an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a Fellow of the Irish Institute of Boston College, Massachusetts.

Damien was appointed as a panel member of the Industrial Court with experience from an employers’ perspective in 2023. He is a Chartered Civil Engineer and a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institute of Management Services. He began his civil engineering career with Durban City Engineer’s Department, South Africa, before returning to Northern Ireland to join a local civil engineering contractor and then moving on to join Roads Service in 1986.

Damien gained experience in a wide variety of roles within Roads, culminating in his appointment as Head of the Department for Infrastructure’s in house highway maintenance direct labour organisation, a role he enjoyed for over ten years until his retirement in 2023. He has many years of experience in collective bargaining and managing industrial relations issues pertaining to a large workforce.

Patricia has been a member of the Industrial Court since 2011. She is a registered nurse with over 40 years health care experience both in Northern Ireland and overseas. She was Director of Head and Skeletal Services in the Belfast Trust, and prior to that, Director of Nursing and Clinical Effectiveness in Green Park Health care Trust. She has a wide range of experience in staff management, professional standards, governance, clinical audit, budget management and service delivery.

Post retirement she has served as a Board Member with the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority and a panel member on the Agricultural Wages Board. She has undertaken voluntary roles including the establishment and commissioning of the first dedicated paediatric hospital in Uganda.

Pat was appointed as a panel member of the Industrial Court in 2011. He retired from full time employment in 2018 after a lengthy career initially in Human Resource Management within the telecoms industry. In the final years of his career, he took on the role of a Human Resources Consultant engaged by a range of public, private and voluntary sector organisations on change management programmes and dealing with employee relations issues.

During his employment within Industry, he had been an active participant within CBI Northern Ireland, Chairing the Employment Affairs Committee of that body for five years. He was also a Trustee Director of the Nortel Pension Plan from 2007 to September 2024 when this plan was finally wound up.

Sinéad was appointed as a panel member of the Industrial Court in 2023. She is currently Group Human Resources director for Staffline Recruitment Ireland and has held strategic HR and leadership positions across several industries throughout her career. She has almost 25 years’ experience serving in both public and private sectors including healthcare; financial services; construction; manufacturing and agri-food; security; facilities management and professional services.

Her work has included complex change management, multi-national business acquisitions and alternative dispute resolution processes. A graduate of Queens University Belfast, Sinéad holds an LL. B in Law with Politics in addition to an MSc in Communication, Training and Development. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD).

Sinéad is also a current Governing Body member for Belfast Metropolitan College, serving on both their Audit & Risk and HR Committees.

Barbara has been a panel member of the Industrial Court since 2011. She was a respiratory physiology manager for the Belfast NHS Trust for over 30 years, writing several textbooks for healthcare professionals during this time. She had been an active trades union representative for professional and technical grades, for many of these years. Barbara retired from the NHS in 2007 – she continued in a trade union role, representing the UK as one of their delegates to the Luxembourg Committee.

Barbara accepted a Ministerial appointment and was appointed during 2000-2008, as a member of the H&S Executive (Northern Ireland) Board of Directors.

Barbara has been a TUC tutor and has taught a number of trades union courses, including health and safety, disability champions in the workplace, and understanding mental health issues at work.

Geraldine was appointed as a panel member of the Industrial Court in 2023. She has over 35 years’ experience as a senior trade union official with the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance representing the interests of members employed in the civil and public services, including the voluntary and community sector.

She has extensive and proven experience in industrial relations and collective bargaining, including equality, human rights and health and safety matters.

A former Board Member and Deputy Chairperson of the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland. She holds a first-class honours degree in Management and Business Studies.

Philip was appointed as a panel member of the Industrial Court in 2023. Philip has over thirty years’ experience as an IT manager and freelance consultant in the telecoms industry. He has extensive employee and industrial relations experience, having been a representative in Prospect and its predecessor union Connect for over three decades. He has undertaken a very large amount of union work at local, national, and international levels and has 15 years’ service on his union’s National Executive Committee.

He has significant experience in collective bargaining and dispute resolution on both sides of the table and was recently appointed as an Independent Appeals Panel chair by the Labour Relations Agency.

Robin brings over four decades of dedicated service and expertise in financial services, trade union representation, and industrial relations. Appointed as a panel member of the Industrial Court in 2011, representing the employee background, Robin’s career reflects a commitment to advocacy and collaborative solutions.

Beginning his professional journey at just 17, Robin entered the
financial services sector, where his passion for employee representation took root.

Over 20 years on the National Executive of the Financial Services Union (FSU), including eight years as honorary secretary, he played a pivotal role in championing workers’ rights and fostering equitable workplace practices.

In 1995, Robin was appointed Director of the AIB Pension Scheme, a position he held until his retirement from the bank in 2018. His tenure on the board coincided with unprecedented transformation and turbulent times in the banking industry, and his expertise in collective bargaining was forged during this challenging period.

A graduate of Queen’s University in Belfast, Nigel brings over two decades of experience in the employment relations sector. Nigel has worked for the Labour Relations Agency, delivering good practice seminars on employment issues, and served as Office Manager at the Northern Ireland Certification Office for 11 years. Additionally, he has over 25 years of experience as a lay trade union official, making him an experienced specialist in employment relations. He has now been seconded to the secretariat of the Industrial Court as Senior Case Manager.

Barry has over 18 years’ experience in the private sector as a retail manager ranging from operational and staffing to visual and creative roles. He was recruited to the Labour Relations Agency in 2021 where he was seconded to the Northern Ireland Certification Office, the statutory regulator of trade unions and employers’ associations. He has since been seconded to the secretariat for the Industrial Court as Case Manager.