PWD2537

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00053326 (CA-00065044-003)

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:

This is an appeal by Dan Nechita against a Decision of an Adjudication Officer (made under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 (“the Act”).

The Adjudication Officer found that the complaint was not well founded. 

An appeal was lodged to the Labour Court on 3 January 2025 and a Labour Court hearing held on 23 September 2025. The appeal is linked to DWT2539 and DWT2540, which were heard on the same day. At the hearing, the Complainant withdrew an appeal of a decision made under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 in relation to Sunday pay. 

For ease, the parties are referred to in this Decision as they were before the Adjudication Officer. Hence, Dan Nechita is referred to as ‘the Complainant’ and his employer, Fingal County Council, is referred to as ‘the Respondent’.  

Summary Position of the Complainant

The Complainant is employed as a Night Watchman with Fingal County Council. Since the start of his employment the Council has been unwilling to provide essential information about his hours of work and pay. He queried disparities in his payslips regarding his rostered hours worked (a 3-week roster averaging 42 hours) and what is recorded on his payslips. It appears that there has been a 3-hour weekly deduction from his wages since his employment commenced.

Summary Position of the Respondent

The complainant has received all amounts “properly payable” to him. He works a 3 weekly roster averaging 42 hours per week contract and was paid in accordance with his contract of employment.

The Council uses a time and attendance system which is common to all local authorities and has a standard configuration. Nightwatchmen are paid the General Operative (GO) rate. As the GO rate is higher than the Nightwatchmen, the equivalent number of hours of the GO rate equates to 39 hours. It is this figure of 39 hours which appears on the complainant’s pay slip and appears to have caused confusion. However, the actual weekly rate of pay that the Complainant receives is correct and in line with his employment contract.

Applicable Law

The Act at Section 5(6) provides as follows:

5(6) Where—

(a) 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 such 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.

Deliberations

To ground a claim under the Payment of Wages Act 1991, the Court needs in the first instance to ascertain what wages are properly payable during the relevant period. Having established that the Court then needs to ascertain whether there was a shortfall in the proper payment and, if that was the case, whether the shortfall arose for one of the reasons set out in section 5(1) above.

As the Complainant lodged his complaint to the WRC on 29 July 2024, the Court’s jurisdiction is confined to assessing alleged contraventions of the Act that occurred in the six-month period prior to that date, which encompasses the period from 30 January 2024 to 29 July 2024. The Court has no jurisdiction to assess alleged contraventions that occurred prior to 30 January 2024.

There was no dispute between the parties in relation to the amount properly payable to the Complainant during the relevant period encompassed by the claim.

The Complainant contends that there is a disparity between the hours that he worked and the hours reflected on his payslip, which indicates an underpayment of his wages during the period in question.

The Respondent referred the Court to documents setting out the payments made to the Complainant during the relevant period.

While the Complainant contends that his payslips are unclear, he was unable to provide details of any shortfall in wages due to him during the relevant period. As a result, the Court finds that the Complainant has failed to make out a case in relation to a contravention of the Act.

In light of that fact, the Court finds that there was no unlawful deduction of the Complainant’s wages during the relevant period for the within complaint and the complaint is not well founded.

Decision

The Court finds that the complaint is not well founded.

The Adjudication Officer’s decision is affirmed.

The Court so decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Katie Connolly
AR	______________________
26 September 2025	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Decision should be addressed to Mr Aidan Ralph, Court Secretary.