PWD2521

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00046409 (CA-00057245-001)

BACKGROUND:

This is an appeal of an Adjudication Officer’s Decision made pursuant to the Payment of Wages Act, 1991. The appeal was heard by the Labour Court in accordance with Section 44 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015. 

The following is the Court's Decision:

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-00057245-001, dated 8 July 2024) under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 (‘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 1991 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”

An employee, within the meaning of the Act of 1991, can refer a complaint under section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 to the Workplace Relations Commission, in relation to any unlawful deduction made by their employer from their wages (or tips or gratuities payable to the employee). 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 6 of the Act of 1991.

Decision

It is common case that the Complainant’s employer (within the meaning of the Act of 1991) was, at all material times, Don Bosco Care CLG. The Complainant has not, by these proceedings, brought a complaint under the Act of 1991 against that entity, 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.