PWD2625

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer’s Decision No.: ADJ-00057073 (CA-00069441-001)

BACKGROUND:

The Employee Appealed the Adjudication Officer’s Decision to the Labour Court on 23 November 2025 in accordance with Payment of Wages Act 1991

A Labour Court Hearing took place on 30 June 2026.

DECISION:

1. Appeal Details

This is an appeal by Ms Ramiro Costa against a Decision of an Adjudication Officer (ADJ-00057073/CA-00069441-001) made under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 (the Act) in a complaint against GoElite Education Limited. The Adjudication Officer’s decision, dated 14 October 2025, found that the complaint was not well founded.

This appeal is linked with appeal decision no. DWT2619, an appeal under the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997 (the OWTA).

For ease, the parties are referred to in the same way as at first instance, so Ms Ramiro Costa is referred to as “the Complainant” and GoElite Education Limited as “the Respondent”.

A hearing of the Court was held on 30 June 2026 in Dublin. The Complainant was not represented at the hearing but was accompanied by individuals, listed as witnesses but who did not give evidence in the case. The Respondent was represented by its Managing Director, Mr Seán McKenna. The Court received written submissions from both parties in advance of the hearing. Both the Complainant and Mr McKenna were sworn in at the commencement of the hearing, so submissions made orally were treated as evidence under oath which was subject to cross examination.

2. Summary of the Complainant’s Submission and Evidence

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent on 20 January 2022 as a Student Co-ordinator and resigned her employment on 1 November 2024 with her last date of employment being 1 December 2024.

The Complainant’s claims under the Act were that she was owed money in respect of overtime worked, and for a flight to Spain to which she claimed a contractual entitlement and for which she was not reimbursed by the Respondent. A separate claim for unpaid annual leave is dealt with in the linked Decision No. DWT2619

The Complainant accepted that her annual salary was €27,000 per annum but provided different calculations of her hourly rate of pay. She claimed a basic rate of €18 per hour in respect of her overtime claim but a different rate (€103.85 per day) in respect of her annual leave claim which equates to €13.85 per hour.

The Complainant provided detailed spreadsheets of hours she said she worked in excess of her contracted hours in respect of 2022, 2023 and part of 2024. She provided a spreadsheet summary for 2024 overall in which she claimed 618.5 hours, valued at €13,356.00, and separately in other documents claimed 312 hours for January to June 2024 (valued at €11,124) and 410.5 hours for August to December 2024 valued at €11,083.50 (a total of 722.5 hours, valued at €22,207.50). She claimed for various overtime rates, on a basic hourly rate of €18 per hour, with overtime attracting a 50% premium generally, weekends attracting 25-50% and public holidays attracting double time. In the Complainant’s oral evidence, she maintained that all the additional hours worked were meticulously logged and all required to be worked by her because of the demands of her role. She said that examples of the work done on overtime included dealing with school visits and calls outside of hours, attendance at hospitals, social events, and time spent at airports.

The Complainant said that her contract provided for payment for two return flights to Spain annually and that the Respondent had paid for those flights during the employment relationship. The Complainant’s evidence was that she booked the Christmas 2024 flights after 1 December 2024 and travelled on 22 December 2024 returning on 3 January 2025. In her written submissions the Complainant identified the cost of the flights as €579.48 but in oral evidence claimed a value of €662.51. The Complainant said the flights were expensive because they were booked late. The Complainant said the Respondent had refused to reimburse her for the Christmas 2024 flights and she sought compensation for that non-payment on the basis that the travel benefit formed part of the established employment arrangements which the Respondent was obliged to honour.

3. Summary of the Respondent’s Submission and Evidence

The Respondent submitted that the Complainant had been employed as a Student Coordinator from 20 January 2022 to 1 December 2024, with the role involving coordinating and supporting international students attending schools in the Dublin region. The students resided with host families which were the primary point of care and supervision in relation to the students’ day-to-day welfare and wellbeing. The Complainant worked remotely and was paid a salary of €27,000, for a 37.5 hour working week between the hours of 09:00 and 17:30 with flexibility required regarding days worked including Saturday and Sunday on occasion. No work was required by the Complainant during June and July. Her salary of €27,000 was for 10 months work each year. The Respondent equated this to an hourly rate of €16.63. The contract of employment did not provide for the payment of overtime and nor did it require unlimited availability outside of normal working hours.

Mr McKenna’s evidence was that the Complainant was not entitled to overtime payments and while it was not disputed that the Complainant maintained detailed records of activities undertaken, he disputed that the work purportedly undertaken was necessary or required to be undertaken by the Complainant and further said that the Respondent had no way of verifying if the work was actually done. Mr McKenna said that many of the tasks identified as having been undertaken by the Complainant were outside the scope of her role and/or were the responsibility of the students’ host families, including inter alia communication with students/schools before commencement of the working day and attendance at non-emergency hospital stays by students. Mr McKenna said that the Respondent did not require or permit routine matters to be dealt with outside normal working hours. Mr McKenna said that if there were genuine emergencies the Respondent would be open to paying for additional hours but that none of what was submitted by the Complainant constituted emergencies.

Mr McKenna said that after the Complainant claimed overtime in 2022, some of which was paid by the Respondent, he had directed her not to be as available to students and families and to restrict her availability to standard working hours. Mr McKenna said that after this exchange the Complainant put a notification on her WhatsApp profile indicating her hours of work of 09:00 to 17:00 and that any contact after 17:00 was to be in respect of emergencies only (“Office 9 to 17, after 17 only emergencies thanks”). Mr McKenna said that he only received overtime claims at the end of the year and that no agreement had been reached in respect of 2023 as he viewed the overtime claimed as unnecessary. He said that he had no visibility on a claim for 2024 until after the Complainant’s resignation. Mr McKenna said that overtime working had not been approved or authorised by the Respondent.

Mr McKenna accepted that the Complainant had a contractual entitlement to be paid for two return flights to Spain annually and said that the Complainant had been reimbursed for those flights during the course of her employment, including in summer 2024. There was not a price limit imposed and the price paid varied trip to trip. Mr McKenna said that the Respondent refused to pay for the Christmas 2024 flights as they had been booked and taken after the Complainant’s employment had come to an end. He did not consider that the Respondent had any liability to pay for the flights because the contract of employment had ended before the flights were booked.

4. Relevant Legislation

Section 5 of the Act provides that:

“(1) An employer shall not make a deduction from the wages of an employee (or receive any payment from an employee) unless –

(c) the deduction (or payment) is required or authorised to be made by virtue of any statute or any instrument made under statute,

(c) the deduction (or payment) is required or authorised to be made by virtue of a term of the employee’s contract of employment included in the contract before, and in force at the time of, the deduction or payment, or

(c) in the case of a deduction, the employee has given his prior consent in writing to it.…

(6) Where-

(b) the total amount of any wages that are paid on any occasion by an employer to an employee is less than the total amount of wages that is properly payable by him to the employee on that occasion (after making any deductions therefrom that fall to be made and are in accordance with this Act), or

(b) none of the wages that are properly payable to an employee by an employer on any occasion (after making any deductions as aforesaid) are paid to the employee,

then, except in so far as the deficiency or non-payment is attributable to an error of computation, the amount of the deficiency or non-payment shall be treated as a deduction made by the employer from the wages of the employee on the occasion.”

The interpretation section of the Act (section 1(1)), sets out definitions of “employee”, “employer” and “wages”, the relevant elements of which are set out below.

“Employee” is defined as meaning: “a person who has entered into or works under (or, where the employment has ceased, entered into or worked under) a contract of employment and references, in relation to an employer, to an employee shall be construed as references to an employee employed by that employer, …”

Employer, in relation to an employee, means: “the person with whom the employee has entered into or for whom the employee works under (or, where the employment has ceased, entered into or worked under) a contract of employment”.

Wages, in relation to an employee, means: “any sums payable to the employee by the employer in connection with his employment, including- any fee, bonus or commission, or any holiday, sick or maternity pay, or any other emolument, referable to his employment, whether payable under his contract of employment or otherwise, and …”

5. Deliberations

It was not disputed that the Complainant was an employee of the Respondent at the material time and that the categories of claim would be covered by the definition of “wages” set out in the Act provided the Complainant can establish that the sums claimed were properly payable.

The Complainant submitted her complaint to the WRC on 20 February 2025 so the cognisable period for consideration is from 21 August 2024 to 20 February 2025. There was no application made for an extension of time. The Complainant’s employment ended on 1 December 2024. Only deductions or non-payments alleged to have occurred within the cognisable period were considered by the Court.

In assessing if a contravention of the Act has occurred the first matter for the Court to determine is to establish what wages are properly payable under the contract of employment. This was the principle established by the High Court in Balans v Tesco Ireland Limited [2020] 31 ELR 125.

5.1       Overtime claim

In respect of her claim for overtime, the Complainant submitted spreadsheets which she had created which she said reflected hours worked by her in the performance of her duties. Her position was that she was obliged to work these hours because of the demands placed on her by students and families and that she had no choice but to work these hours. The Complainant maintained that because the work had been done she was entitled to be paid for it. The spreadsheets, which included task specific activities, predominantly related to periods outside the cognisable period and reflected the Complainant’s tracking of tasks without any independent corroboration. The Complainant’s summary spreadsheet included a claim that she had worked 39 hours overtime during December 2024, notwithstanding her last date of employment was 1 December 2024.

As part of the documentation supporting her appeal, the Complainant identified that 426 hours of overtime in 2023 was unpaid which she valued at €8,797.50, and 618.5 hours, valued at €13,356.00, was unpaid for 2024. The 2024 claim was separately advanced in other documents as 312 hours for January to June (valued at €11,124) and 410.5 hours for August to December valued at €11,083.50 (a total of 722.5 hours, valued at €22,207.50), and in a third document maintained that 371.5 additional hours were worked in 2024. The Complainant claimed for various overtime rates, on a basic hourly rate of €18 per hour, with overtime attracting a 50% premium generally, weekends attracting 25-50% and public holidays attracting double time. The Complainant’s oral evidence lacked specificity, was inconsistent and contradictory and was not of great assistance to the Court. The Complainant maintained that all the additional hours worked were meticulously logged and all required to be worked by her because of the demands of her role.

It was accepted by the parties that a payment had been made in respect of some overtime claimed by the Complainant in 2022 following agreement between the parties. The Respondent’s evidence was that after the Complainant had made that claim, she had been spoken to and advised that she was not required to be, and nor was she to be, as available to students and families in the manner she had been. It was not disputed that the Complainant’s WhatsApp profile (provided to the Court) contained a notification that working hours were 09:00 to 17:00 and contact after 17:00 was for emergencies only. Very little of the listed activity by the Complainant could have been considered emergency in nature and much of what she claimed was necessary was disputed by the Respondent as being necessary, and appeared to the Court, based on documents provided governing the nature of the service provided by the Respondent, to be more properly within the remit of the host family.

The Complainant did not contend that the Respondent knew in advance she was undertaking these additional hours and neither was it suggested that the Respondent was aware that overtime was being worked by the Complainant at or around the time it was worked. In respect of the cognisable period the Complainant’s evidence was that she only notified the Respondent of the hours purportedly worked after she had given notice that she was leaving her employment.

For the cognisable period there were inconsistent and contradictory claims, between different documents and between the sworn oral evidence and documentary evidence relied upon. The Court, with some difficulty discerned that the claim for the cognisable period was for 267.5 hours overtime which the Complainant maintained was payable at a premium rate of basic plus 50% which she calculated to be €27 per hour. This valued the Complainant’s claim at €7,222.50. 

It was not disputed between the parties that the Complainant’s contract of employment provided for a fixed salary of €27,000 for 10 months work, for 37.5 hours per week over five days which may include Saturday and Sunday. There was no provision in the contract for the payment of overtime, nor any rate for which overtime if worked would be paid. The contract itself provided that there was a need to be flexible within the working week but the hours of work were 37.5 hours over five days. It was never agreed between the Respondent and the Complainant that the Complainant would work additional hours, and neither was it ever agreed in advance that she would be paid for additional hours.  The Respondent’s evidence was that the Complainant had been told not to work the hours she had previously worked in 2022 as it was not required by her job. On the Complainant’s account the first the Respondent knew of her claim for overtime during the cognisable period was at the end of her employment. The Complainant’s calculation of the rate payable for overtime hours was based on her own research of what might be payable in general terms to workers but it was clear to the Court that a premium rate for overtime was not a term of her employment, that the rate selected by the Complainant as applicable did not reflect what had been previously paid to her, and neither had it ever been agreed with the Respondent.

While the Complainant may have worked additional hours during the cognisable period, those hours were not verified to the Court. Even if they had been, which they were not, the Complainant has not established that she had any contractual entitlement to be paid for those hours. That she had received some payment for previous overtime was not disputed, but the Complainant did not contend that this prior payment was at the rate of €27 per hour and nor was it for all of the hours claimed. No payment had been made by the Respondent, in respect of overtime purportedly worked by the Complainant, for 2023.

In the absence of any agreement that overtime was necessary at all, or an agreement that it was to be worked or confirmation (at the time it was worked) that it was worked, and in the absence of any agreed rate of pay for overtime, the Court finds that the Complainant has not established any contractual entitlement to be paid overtime at all, nor to be paid overtime at the rate claimed.

The Court does not consider that the overtime claimed (or any overtime) was properly payable pursuant to the Complainant’s contract of employment or otherwise or at all.

5.2       Claim for cost of return flights to Spain

The Complainant sought reimbursement for the cost of return flights from Dublin to Spain, in reliance on a contractual entitlement to two return flights annually which had previously been paid by the Respondent, but where reimbursement was refused in respect of the December 2024 flights.

The contract of employment provided by the Complainant did not include a provision for two return flights to Spain on an annual basis. However, there was an email from the Respondent to the Complainant, which was provided as part of the offer documentation to the Complainant, which included an entitlement to “2 paid return flights to Spain each year”. The Respondent did not dispute the Complainant’s entitlement to two return flights annually and it was accepted, by both parties, that in prior years the Respondent had reimbursed the Complainant for such flights and that she had been reimbursed for the flight she had taken in the summer of 2024. It was also not disputed that the Respondent did not reimburse the flight taken by the Complainant for Christmas 2024.

The Complainant’s oral evidence, supported by flight booking documentation, was that she had booked the flights to Spain after she had resigned her employment for travel after her employment had been terminated for some weeks. The documentation appears to indicate that the flights were booked as late as 10 December 2024. The Respondent’s position is that where the Complainant had resigned her employment the Respondent’s obligations, under the contract of employment with the Complainant, ceased.

If the Complainant’s employment had not ended before the travel was booked and completed the Respondent would have a liability to reimburse the Complainant for the cost of the flights. However, in circumstances where the flights were booked by the Complainant after her employment had ended, in respect of travel which took place weeks after the termination of her employment, the Court does not consider the Respondent had any obligation to reimburse the Complainant for the costs of the flights. The Court does not consider that the cost of the Christmas 2024 flights were properly payable to the Complainant by the Respondent.

6. Decision

Neither the overtime sums claimed nor the cost of the return flight to Spain were properly payable to the Complainant by the Respondent pursuant to the contract of employment between the parties.

The decision of the Adjudication Officer, bearing adjudication reference number ADJ-00057073 and complaint reference number CA-00069441-001, in which the Adjudication Officer found the Complainant’s claim under the Act was not well-founded, is affirmed by the Court.

The Court so decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Niamh McGowan
BB	______________________
24/09/2026	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Decision should be in writing and addressed to Bernard Byrne Court Secretary.