Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Rebecca  Brides

Enhance Skin & Laser Limited

Representatives

Ms. Nikki McGoohan

Mr. Cyril Keegan, HR Desk

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Schedule 2 of the Protected Disclosures Act, 2014

CA-00070760-001

11/04/2025

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994

CA-00070760-002

11/04/2025

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 12 of the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act, 1973

CA-00070760-003

11/04/2025

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997

CA-00070760-004

11/04/2025

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent on 1st January 2019. At all relevant times, the Complainant’s role was described as that of “beautician”. The Complainant’s employment ended on 30th April 2024.

On 11th April 2025, the Complainant referred the present set of complaints to the Commission. Herein, she alleged that the Respondent did not issue a statement of terms, did not discharge her full annual leave entitlement on the termination of her employment and penalised her for making a protected disclosure. While the Respondent indicated that they were willing to defend these complaints on their merits, they submitted that the Complainant did not have jurisdiction to bring the same, as they were out of time for the purposes of the impleaded legislation.

A hearing in relation to this matter was convened for, and finalised on, 29th July 2025. This hearing was conducted by way of remote hearing pursuant to the Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020 and SI 359/20206, which designates the WRC as a body empowered to hold remote hearings. No technical issues were experienced during the hearing.

Both parties issued extensive submissions in advance of the hearing. Said submissions were contested and expanded upon in the course of the hearing. The Complainant gave evidence in support of her application to extend the cognisable period for the purposes of the impleaded Acts. Said evidence was given under affirmation and was opened to cross examination by the opposing side.

Given the nature of the preliminary issue raised by the Respondent, this will be discussed in advance of the substantive matter.

By submission, the Complainant accepted that she had referred the present set of complaints in excess of six months from the final date of her employment. She further accepted that this would ordinarily render the same out of time for the purposes of the Workplace Relations Act 2015.

Notwithstanding the same, the Complainant made an application to the extend the cognisable period for the impleaded Acts. In grounding the same, the Complainant stated that she had sought legal advice in relation to these matters at the start of 2024. She had assumed that these matters were being dealt with by her representative. However, in October 2024, the Complainant discovered that her representative had been suspended by his governing body and that no progress had been made in relation to the complaints. The Complainant spent some time attempting to secure alternative representation, however numerous local solicitors did not take her on as a client. When the Complainant secured her present representation, the current complaints were referred in a matter of days.

Having regard to the foregoing, the Complainant submitted that while a delay arose in the referral of the present complaints, this was not her fault and arose as a consequence of the failure on behalf of her initial representative to refer the complaints in a timely manner.

In responding to the Complainant’s application, the Respondent submitted that she had not demonstrated “reasonable cause” so as to allow the cognisable period of the complaints to be extended. In this respect, they submitted that it was well recognised that a failure on part of a representative cannot ground such an application.

At the outset of the hearing, the Complainant accepted that the present complaints were referred in excess of six months from her final date of employment. In this regard, it is common case that the no infringement of any of the impleaded Acts occurred within the cognisable period of the present Act, unless the Complainant establishes “reasonable cause” to extend the same to twelve months prior to the date of referral. In grounding this application, the Complainant set out a series of difficulties she encountered with her then legal representative and her difficulties in securing professional representation thereafter.

In this regard, Section 41(6) provides as follows,

“…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.

Subsection 8 goes on to provide as follows,

“An adjudication officer may entertain a complaint or dispute to which this section applies presented or referred to the Director General after the expiration of the period referred to in subsection (6) or (7) (but not later than 6 months after such expiration), as the case may be, if he or she is satisfied that the failure to present the complaint or refer the dispute within that period was due to reasonable cause.”

The test for establishing “reasonable cause” for these purposes is well settled. In the matter of Cementation Skanska (Formerly Kvaerner Cementation) v Carroll DWT 38/2003, the Labour Court held as follows,

 “It is the Court’s view that in considering if reasonable cause exists, it is for the Complainant to show that there are reasons which both explain the delay and afford an excuse for the delay. The explanation must be reasonable, that is to say it must make sense, be agreeable to reason and not be irrational or absurd. In the context in which the expression reasonable cause appears in the statute it suggests an objective standard, but it must be applied to the facts and circumstances known to the Complainant at the material time. The Complainant’s failure to present the claim within the six-month time limit must have been due to the reasonable cause relied upon. Hence there must be a causal link between the circumstances cited and the delay and the Complainant should satisfy the Court, as a matter of probability, which had those circumstances not been present he/she would have initiated the claim in time.”

In the more recent matter of Leon Kinsella -v- Anson Friend DWT209, the Court described the test in the following terms,

“It is clear from the authorities that the test places the onus on the applicant for an extension of time to identify the reason for the delay and to establish that the reason relied upon provides a justifiable excuse for the actual delay. Secondly, the onus is on the applicant to establish a causal connection between the reason proffered for the delay and his or her failure to present the complaint in time. Thirdly, the Court must be satisfied, as a matter of probability, that the complaint would have been presented in time were it not for the intervention of the factors relied upon as constituting reasonable cause. It is the actual delay that must be explained and justified. Hence, if the factors relied upon to explain the delay ceased to operate before the complaint was presented, that may undermine a claim that those factors were the actual cause of the delay”.

Regarding the present case, the Complainant has sought to ground her application for an extension of the cognisable period on two separate, but connected, grounds. Firstly, the Complainant has submitted that her then solicitor failed to refer the present complaints in line with her instructions. Thereafter, the Complainant submitted that she had difficulty securing professional representation for these matters. In this regard, it should be noted that the present complaints were referred almost immediately following the appointment of the present representative for the Complainant.

Regarding the initial point, it is well established that a failure on the part of a representative to file a complaint in line with client instructions cannot successfully ground an application under Section 41(8). In the matter of Medical & Industrial Pipeline Systems -v- David Dunne, MND191, the Labour Court held that,

“The Court has consistently taken the approach that it is for the Applicant to establish that there is reasonable cause for the delay. It is well settled that an application for an extension of time must both explain the delay and provide a justifiable excuse for the delay. Having considered the submissions advanced in the course of the appeal, the Court cannot accept that an oversight on the part of the Trade Union representative is sufficient to explain the delay.”

Even if this were not the case, it is apparent that the Complainant became aware that her representative had failed to file the present complaints in October of 2024, a point at which they may well still have been in time for referral. Thereafter, the Complainant submitted that she encountered significant difficulty in securing representation for the present matters. While I do accept the Complainant’s point that complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act, in particular, can be complex in nature, there is no requirement for an individual to be legally represented to file the complaint within the relevant timeframe. In this respect, it cannot be said that the Complainant’s difficulties in securing representation constitutes “a justifiable excuse for the actual delay” as set out in Kinsella, quoted above.

Having regard to the accumulation of the foregoing points, I find that the Complainant has not established “reasonable cause” in accordance with Section 41(8) of the Act. In these circumstances, I find that no breach of the impleaded Acts occurred within the cognisable period for the present complaints, and the same are duly deemed to be not well-founded.

CA-00070760-001 Complaint under the Protected Disclosures Act

I find that no breaches of the impleaded Act occurred within the cognisable period of the present complaints and the same is duly deemed to be not well-founded.

CA-00070760-002 Complaint under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act

I find that no breaches of the impleaded Act occurred within the cognisable period of the present complaints and the same is duly deemed to be not well-founded.

CA-00070760-003 Complaint under the Minimum Notice of Terms of Employment Act

I find that no breaches of the impleaded Act occurred within the cognisable period of the present complaints and the same is duly deemed to be not well-founded.

CA-00070760-004 Complaint under the Organisation of Working Time Act

I find that no breaches of the impleaded Act occurred within the cognisable period of the present complaints and the same is duly deemed to be not well-founded.

Cognisable Period, Reasonable Cause, Legal Representation