TED2512

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00046409 (CA-00057245-002)

BACKGROUND:

The Worker appealed the Decision of the Adjudication Officer to the Labour Court on the 15th August 2024 in accordance with Section 8 (1) of the Terms of Employment (Information) Acts, 1994 to 2012.  A Labour Court hearing took place on the 6th March 2025. 

The following is the Decision of the Court.

DECISION:

Background to the Appeal

This is an appeal by Ms Rachel Valentine (‘the Complainant’) from a decision of an Adjudication Officer (ADJ-00046409/CA-00057245-002, dated 8 July 2024) under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 (‘the Act’). Notice of Appeal was received in the Court on 15 August 2024. The Court heard the appeal in Dublin on 6 March 2025.

Preliminary Issues

At all times in the within proceedings, the Complainant has named the Respondent as the ‘Department of Public Finances and Expenditure’. There is no such Government department. Furthermore, the Complainant indicated to the Court that it was never her intention to assert that she was employed at the material time by any entity other than Don Bosco Care CLG, a private sector charitable organization that is in receipt of certain grant funding from TUSLA pursuant to section 56 of the Child and Family Agency Act 2013.

The Law

The Act of 1994 defines ‘employer’ for the purposes of that Act as follows:

"’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 subject to the qualification that the person who under a contract of employment referred to in paragraph (b) of the definition of “contract of employment” is liable to pay the wages of the individual concerned in respect of the work or service concerned shall be deemed to be the individual’s employer”.

An employee, within the meaning of the Act of 1994, can refer a complaint under section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 to the Workplace Relations Commission, in relation to an alleged failure on the part of his/her employer within the meaning of the Act to furnish him/her with a written statement under the Act. An Adjudication Officer, having heard the parties, may then direct the employer in question – where the complaint is well-founded – to make redress to the employee under section 7 of the Act of 1994.

Decision

It is common case that the Complainant’s employer (within the meaning of the Act of 1994) was, at all material times, Don Bosco Care CLG. The Complainant has not, by these proceedings, brought a complaint under the Act of 1994 against her (former) employer, but has instead chosen to name a non-existing Government department as the Respondent to the proceedings.

It follows, therefore, that the Court must find that the appeal fails for the foregoing reasons. The decision of the Adjudication Officer is upheld.

The Court so decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Alan Haugh
CC	______________________
28th May 2025	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Decision should be addressed to Ms Ceola Cronin, Court Secretary.