Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Boobalan  Kirubakaran

Blue Haven Hotel Kinsale

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00078685-001

16/12/2025

The complainant was employed as a chef by the Blue Haven Hotel, Kinsale. He commenced employment with the respondent in August 2021.

He has submitted two complaints, which despite being submitted almost simultaneously (about two hours apart) were listed to be heard as separate adjudications, although heard together.

This complaint relates to the alleged  failure of the respondent to pay him for hours worked in January 2025 which is addressed here..

The second complaint is ADJ 69921 CA-00078673 which is addressed separately.

There are a number of preliminary issues.

The complainant resigned from his employment on March 22nd, 2025, but did not submit his complaint to the WRC until December 16th, 2026, some nine months later but for a few days. The time limit for submitting a complaint is, in general, six months. The alleged breach took place in January 2025.

Secondly, the respondent has been named as ‘The Blue Haven Hotel’ but this has been challenged as being incorrect. The respondent has submitted that the correct trading name for the entity which employed the complainant  was Cross Blue Holdings Ltd (now in liquidation; the liquidator attended the hearing).

There is a further issue in relation to the other complaint about whether it has been made under the correct statute but, given the foregoing, that does not arise here.

The complainant gave evidence on affirmation.

On the preliminary issue of delayhe sought an extension of Time Limit  on the ‘Reasonable Cause’ ground

He justified this on the fact that he had been actively engaging with his employer on the issue and submitted evidence of this in emails that had passed between them.

Two emails were submitted in evidence. The first of these on May 19th, 2025, related to weeks worked in arrears and the other, on May 23rd to the issue of excess hours (which is the subject of the other complaint)

He submitted that he had been proactively pursuing the outstanding wages and extra hours worked immediately after his resignation.

He alleged misleading conduct by the respondent and said its replies contained repetitive and factually incorrect information. He says the respondent should not benefit from the delay that their own misleading communications helped create.

Finally he says that as a non-national, he was initially unfamiliar with the specific, six month statutory limit. Once it became clear the employer would not resolve the matter internally, he acted immediately to file with the Workplace Relations Commission.

In his evidence he accepted that the correct legal name of the respondent was Cross Blue Holdings Ltd.

Respondent; preliminary issue.

Mr. John Healy the court appointed liquidator gave evidence on affirmation on the correct company name. He confirmed the correct name of the respondent as Cross Blue Holdings Ltd.

Mr. Ciaran Fitgerald, former Managing Director of the hotel, gave evidence on affirmation. He too confirmed the correct company name.

He denied that the complainant was owed outstanding wages for the hours worked. He stated that the complainant was in the habit of leaving work without ‘clocking out’ and this had given rise to the appearance that he was working longer hours than he had. His failure to comply with the business’ rules in this regard had been the subject of disciplinary action against the complainant.

MS Catherine O’Keeffe gave evidence on affirmation.

She had dealt with the complainant and submitted that the first email from him was on March 3rd, 2025. This continued until May 25th at which point it concluded. She said that this only related to the weeks in arrears worked by the complainant. She stated that he did not raise any issue about excess hours in January.

While the phrase ‘reasonable cause’ in its ordinary meaning may imply a low enough bar for an Adjudicator in considering extending the time limits, the actual test to be applied in considering an extension of time applications under the Acts is a good deal stricter and less discretionary.

It is that formulated by the Labour Court in Cementation Skanska (Formerly Kvaerner Cementation) v Carrol Determination DWT 0338 and in other cases and may be summarised as the ‘explain and excuse’ test.

“It is the Court’s view that in considering if reasonable cause exists, it is for the claimant 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 claimant at the material time. The claimant’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 claimant should satisfy the Court, as a matter of probability, that had those circumstances not been present he would    have initiated the claim in time.

 The length of the delay should be taken into account. A short delay may require only a slight explanation whereas a long delay may require more cogent reasons. Where reasonable cause is shown the Court must still consider if it is appropriate in the circumstances to exercise its discretion in favour of granting an extension of time. Here the Court should consider if the respondent has suffered prejudice by the delay and should also consider if the claimant has a good arguable case.”

The Labour Court subsequently endorsed this in Salesforce.com v Leech EDA1615 held as follows:

 “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 the complaint 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.

Finally, while the established test imposes a relatively low threshold of reasonableness on an   applicant, there is some limitation on the range of issues which can be taken into account. In particular, as was pointed out by Costello J in O’Donnell v Dun Laoghaire Corporation [1991] ILRM 30, a Court should not extend a statutory time limit merely because the applicant subjectively believed that he or she was justified in delaying the institution of proceedings.”

In considering the criterion to be applied as to whether reasonable cause exists, the Labour Court said in Department of Finance v IMPACT. [2005] E.L.R. 6.  that it was for the applicant to show that there were reasons which both explain the delay and which afford an excuse for it.

This imports a clear objective standard into the test. The Court continued:

“The Court must also be satisfied that the explanation offered is reasonable, that is to say, it must be agreeable to reason and not be irrational or absurd. This is essentially a question of fact and degree to be decided by applying common sense and normally accepted standards of reasonableness. The standard is an objective one but it must be applied to the facts known to the applicants at the material time.

While it is not expressly provided in the Act, it seems explicit that even where reasonable cause is shown the Court should go on to consider if there are any countervailing factors which would make it unjust to enlarge the time limit. These factors would include … the degree of prejudice which may have been suffered by the respondent (or third parties) in consequence of the delay, the length of the delay, whether the applicant has been guilty of culpable delay and whether the applicant has a good arguable case on its merits.”

So it will be seen from this that the test is a strict one.

The complainant has submitted three grounds for his failure to submit the complaints within the statutory time limits.

The first relates to the continuing engagement with the respondent. The second is also related to this and refers to alleged misleading conduct by the respondent.

Bear in mind that we are considering a statutory time limit here. It is not some administrative guideline decided by the WRC for the better management of its scheduling of cases or some other reason.

Therefore, this must inform the approach to the second limb of the test set out above in that any argument for delay must also excuse the delay.

This could happen if an issue giving rise to a possible referral had not crystallised within the time limits, or vital information which disclosed the grounds for a complaint had been withheld from a complainant.  But a matter referred to the WRC is, if anything more easily withdrawn than it is referred and a party who decides simply that they will wait for the outcome of communications with their employer or the exhaustion of internal workplace machinery before making a referral will not survive the Labour Court test set out above if they exceed the six month limit.

The complainant’s problems do not end there.

Ms. O’Keefe’s evidence was that the last communication from the complainant was on May 23rd. Depending on when in January the issue arose this still left the complainant some time to make his complaint. (Incidentally, contrary to the evidence to the hearing this final email did refer to the excess hours issue although I accept that the witness’s evidence on this point was based on recollection).

His final point is essentially the ‘ignorance of the law’ argument which will not be sufficient to overcome the ‘excuse’ component of the test.

It is not in dispute that he has named the wrong respondent but the matter of jurisdiction to hear the complaint trumps any technical consideration on that regard.

While he applied to have this corrected on February 23rd 2026 this may really only be addressed at a hearing. There is some latitude in making small adjustments to a party name with the consent of that party but this is obviously more difficult where the wrong party has been named and the identity of the correct respondent was known to the complainant

Accordingly I find that the complaint has not been made within the required time limits and is not within jurisdiction.

It is not well founded.

For the reasons set out above Complaint CA-00078685 is not well founded.

Time Limits