UDD2514

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00048802 (CA-00059940-001).

BACKGROUND:

The Worker appealed the Decision of the Adjudication Officer to the Labour Court on 11 April 2024 in accordance with Section 8A of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 to 2015.

A Labour Court hearing took place on 25 April 2025.

The following is the Decision of the Court:-

DECISION:

Background to the Appeal

This is an appeal by Ms Anita Ryan (‘the Complainant’) from a decision of an Adjudication Officer (ADJ-00048802/CA-00059940-004, dated 8 March 2024) under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 (‘the Act’). Notice of Appeal was received in the Court on 11 April 2024. The Court heard the appeal in Limerick on 25 April 2025.

The Factual Matrix

The Respondent is a small family-run business with two directors and approximately eleven employees. The business manufactures and distributes car care products throughout the island of Ireland via van sales. The Complainant commenced employment with the business on a part-time basis, two days per week, on 3 February 2020. She later moved to a three-day work pattern. Her role consisted of reception duties whenever there were visitors to the Respondent’s premises and inputting data from invoices generated by the sales representatives into the accounts package. The Complainant was paid €302.59 per week.

The Complainant was informed in September 2023 that the business needed to reduce its overheads and that through increased digitisation her role had become redundant. Her employment terminated on 12 September 2023. She referred her complaint under the Act to the Workplace Relations Commission on 12 November 2023.

Evidence of Ms Margaret Walsh

The witness told the Court that she is one of the two directors of the Respondent and that she is involved in the financial and administrative side of the business. According to the witness, the Complainant commenced employment on 3 February 2020 on a two-day week basis but subsequently began working three days per week. She said that the Complainant’s main duties consisted of manually entering data from the sales representatives’ invoices on SAGE, liaising with the warehouse and processing stock orders and that she also did some receptionist work when visitors attended the company’s offices, for which work she was paid €302.59 per week.

The witness said that the business had been hit hard by both Brexit and by the Covid pandemic as a result of which many of its smaller customers closed and demand for its products ‘fell off the cliff’. The witness gave evidence about the financial state of the business which she said has always been dependent on bank loans and all its vehicles are leased.

According to the witness, the business began providing tablets to the sales representatives from 2022 onwards which they then used to input their orders. Initially the sales representatives made a significant number of errors that had to be corrected by the Complainant but this eased off after a while and the sales representatives became very competent using the tablets and this resulted in the elimination of 4 to 5 hours of the Complainant’s daily work.

The witness’s evidence turned to changes that took place in the business in 2023. Her fellow director’s brother retired early in April that year and his son and daughter also left the business around that time. This led to significant savings in wage costs. The witness said that work patterns were also streamlined. She said that the sales representatives began dealing directly with the warehouse. The Complainant was absent on extended sick leave from May 2023 onwards and as a result the office phone was transferred directly to the witness’s and the Complainant’s duties generally were redistributed.

In or around June 2023, the Respondent placed an advertisement seeking to recruit an additional staff member. However, In July or August 2023 it became apparent that the company needed additional borrowings and also needed to increase sales and reduce overheads. The witness said that they had received comprehensive advice from the company accountant in this regard as there were significant impending payments due to Revenue. This prompted the Directors briefly to consider increasing their sales activity in Northern Ireland and assigning the witness to oversee this. The witness told the Court that in that context she had a conversation with the Complainant in or around April 2023 about the possibility of her increasing her hours to five days per week. She said that the Complainant indicated that she would be available to work four days per week but would need to be paid for one day in cash. The witness said she told the Complainant that all payments would have to be through the books. The witness told the Court that the proposal regarding Northern Ireland didn’t go ahead and there was, therefore, no requirement to extend the Complainant’s working hours.

According to the witness, the effective use of the tablets by the sales representatives and increased digitisation in the business led to a lessening of the Complainant’s workload and eventually to closure of the office facilities thus eliminating the need for her role entirely. Asked by Counsel if there was an alternative role into which the Complainant could have been placed, the witness told the Court that a sales representative in the Donegal area had passed away in January of 2023 and he was replaced in September 2023 but that the Complainant would not have had the skillset to fill that role.

The Complainant gave evidence of meeting with the Complainant on 12 September 2023 to advise her that her role was no longer tenable in circumstances where the Respondent needed to make significant cost savings and a large number of her previous tasks had been successfully digitised. She presented a pre-prepared letter to the Complainant at that meeting advising that the Complainant was to be made redundant with immediate effect.

Evidence of Andrew McCaughan

The witness said that he had originally been hired as a van salesman but was promoted to General Manager in 2023. Since then, he said, his focus had been on modernising the business and increasing sales. He said that he had had a very good working relationship with the Complainant and that she had been highly regarded in the company. His evidence then addressed the process whereby the tablets for the sales representatives had been introduced into the business and the positive impact that they had on increasing efficiency generally. He told the Court that the decision to make the Complainant’s position redundant had been taken in August 2023. At that time, the witness said, various alternatives had been considered but that the amount of administrative work that needed to be done had reduced considerably following the introduction of the tablets. He also said that the Complainant could not have fulfilled the sales role that became available in Donegal in 2023 and nor could she have been assigned to work in the production area as her skillset was in administration.

The Complainant’s Evidence

The Complainant gave evidence in relation to loss and mitigation. She gave evidence of making her first job application on 27 October 2023 after having been made redundant She told the Court that she is currently employed in the accounts department of a school and earning €19.50 per hour since January 2025. She said that she taken up the position in January 2024 and was initially paid €17.50 per hour. The Complainant also said that the position she holds is for the period September to June each year. She is required to sign on during the long vacation.

Discussion and Decision

The Court finds that the Respondent’s witnesses gave credible evidence both in relation to the financial difficulties that the business found itself in having come through Brexit and Covid and in relation to the cost savings and efficiencies it achieved through increased use of technology. A collateral effect of the latter measures was a reduction in the level of administrative work required in the business. In the light of that evidence which was not seriously challenged, it seems to the Court that a genuine redundancy situation had arisen within the Respondent’s office. However, it was also accepted by the Respondent’s witnesses that the manner in which the Complainant’s redundancy was effected lacked any semblance of fair procedures. The decision to dismiss her had been made in August of 2023 without any prior engagement with her. She attended a meeting on 12 September 2023 which she believed to be a return to work meeting only to be told that the decision to make her redundant was a fait accompli and would take immediate effect.

Having regard to the foregoing, the Court finds that the appeal succeeds and the decision of the Adjudication Officer is set aside.

The Complainant was out of work for approximately seventeen weeks. The Court measures the compensation payable to the Complainant under the Act, having regard to her tardiness in seeking to mitigate her loss, at €2,487.00.

The Court so decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Alan Haugh
TH	______________________
23 July 2025	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Decision should be addressed to Ms Therese Hickey, Court Secretary.