Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Gazmend  Neziri

Coventina  Limited

Representatives

Self

No attendance

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991

CA-00066171-001

23/09/2024

This complaint was brought by a restaurant manager relating to outstanding wages.

The Complainant salary was €900 gross per week which would have resulted in a net payment of €715.50 per week.

There was no attendance at the hearing by the Respondent. I'm satisfied that it received notification of the hearing. A director of the Respondent emailed the WRC Secretariat on 16 January 2025 advising that the Respondent company was being liquidated and was no longer operating since the mid-2024. The email stated that the writer was not in Ireland until mid February and stated that he would contact the WRC in mid-February and forward the complaint to the liquidator that would be dealing with the company.

The Complainant provided me with social media posts of the Respondent director which indicated that he was in Ireland at the time of the hearing.

I carried out a company search prior to the hearing and at the date of the hearing and noted nothing registered with the CRO that indicated that the Respondent was in liquidation.  At the time of issuing this decision, this was still the case.

The full name of the Respondent was typed incorrectly by the Complainant in his complaint form and I amended this at the hearing. I am satisfied there is no prejudice to the Respondent as there was sufficient detail in the complaint form to identify the Respondent and its email address.

The Complainant had no documentary evidence of his payslips of bank statements at the hearing.  These were furnished after the hearing and provided to the Respondent. 

The Complainant's case was that he commenced working in the restaurant in 2021. He had a contract with a different employer name but he worked in the same restaurant for the duration of his employment.

His case was that he was on holidays in July 2024 and he was removed from the workplace group chat. This indicated to the Complainant that he was no longer employed by the Respondent. The Complainant queried with the Respondent as to whether his employment had ended, but he did not receive an explanation. He set up three meetings with the Respondent to discuss his position, but the Respondent never met with him and always has an excuse as to why he couldn't attend.

For the last number of months before his employment ended, the Complainant's pay was reduced to €590 per week. We did not receive payslips and there was no explanation for the reduction in pay.

The Complainant also did not receive pay for his public holidays.

There was no attendance for the Respondent.

This complaint is under the Payment of Wages legislation and the Complainant submitted to me his bank statements for 2023 and 2024.

It was clear from the bank statements that the Respondent did not pay the Complainant every week and the payments were irregular and being stretched out beyond the due date every week.

There were only three payments during March 2024, April 2024 and May 2024. There were three payments in July 2024 with one payment in August 2024 and one payment in September 2024.

The payments varied between €733 and €590.

Section 41(6) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 provides:

“(6) Subject to subsection (8), an adjudication officer shall not entertain a complaint referred to him or her under this section if it has been presented to the Director General after the expiration of the period of 6 months beginning on the date of the contravention to which the complaint relates.”

The issue of the time limits applicable to claims under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 was considered in some detail by the High Court in HSE v McDermott [2014] IEHC 331. That case pre-dated the enactment of the Workplace Relations Act 2015. However, the time limits originally provided for in section 6(4) of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 as enacted are replicated in section 41(6) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015.

At paragraphs 14 to 16 of his judgment, Hogan J states:

“14. Yet the relevant statutory language takes us somewhat further, because the key question is the “date of the contravention to which the complaint relates.” In other words, time runs for the purposes of the Act not from the date of any particular contravention or even the date of the first contravention, but rather from the date of the contravention “to which the complaint relates.” As the EAT pointed out in its ruling on the matter, had the Oireachtas intended that time was to run from the date of the first contravention, it could easily have so provided.

15. For the purposes of this limitation period, everything turns, accordingly, on the manner in which the complaint is framed by the employee. If, for example, the employer has been unlawfully making deductions for a three year period, then provided that the complaint which has been presented relates to a period of six months beginning “on the date of the contravention to which the complaint relates”, the complaint will nonetheless be in time.

16. It follows, therefore, that if an employer has been making deduction X from the monthly salary of the employee since January 2010, a complaint which relates to deductions made from January, 2014 onwards and which is presented to the Rights Commissioner in June, 2014 will still be in time for the purposes of s. 6(4). If, on the other hand, the complaint were to have been framed in a different manner, such that it related to the period from January, 2010 onwards, it would then have been out of time.”

The complaint in this case under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 was referred to the Workplace Relations Commission on 23 September 2024. It follows, therefore, that the period comprehended by the complaint is 24 March 2024 to 23 September 2024.

While the Complainant gave evidence that the Respondent had not paid him for 11 weeks at one stage, he claimed that he was due €6,500.00 in his complaint form.  I have not been able to identify that number of payments outstanding during the period that I have jurisdiction over.

The Complainant submitted his payslips and bank statement after the hearing.  Despite being requested to provide a report linking payments with the lodgements in his bank statement, the Complainant did not provide same.  He emailed the Workplace Relations Commission setting out

“As you could see from my bank statement i was owned loads of wages from before 24/03/24

I don't think it's fair to not calculate all my weeks that i was owned since i started with the company 

I would appreciate if you can ask them to prove what week i was getting paid on what dates.

I also need to get paid the difference that it says in payslips and what i got in my bank account please.“

The Respondent did not engage with the Workplace Relations Commission.

To make my decision, I cross referenced the payslips provided to me with the bank statements.

I found that there was a deduction from pay due to the Complainant on the following dates and amounts:

The Respondent made 4 payments of €590.00 to the Complainant’s bank account after the employment ended namely on the 16 July 2024, 30 July 2025, 6 August 2024 and 5 September 2024.  These amounted to €2,360.00.

Setting these payments off against the wages outstanding amounts to €829.36.  This is a nett payment.

The Complainant also worked the following public holidays during the cognisable period namely

Easter Monday         1 April 2024

May public holiday  6 May 2024

June public holiday  3 June 2024

The Complainant confirmed that he worked these public holidays and there was no additional pay on the payslips available to me for these weeks.  I award the Complainant the withheld payment of these three days in the sum of €180.00 x 3 = €540.00.  This is a gross payment. 

This complaint is well founded and I award the Complainant the following payments  of

€829.36  nett for outstanding wages due and

€540.00 gross for outstanding public holiday pay.

Cognisable period for calculation of wages