Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Monil  Patel

MCA Education Limited

Representatives

North Dublin Citizens Information Service

Self - Represented

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977

CA-00073654-001

22/07/2025

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

CA-00073654-003

22/07/2025

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

CA-00074321-001

13/08/2025

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967

CA-00075454-001

16/09/2025

The Complainant states that he was unfairly dismissed by the Respondent in breach of Section 6(1) and Section 6(7) of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977. He further claims that the Respondent has contravened the legislation in respect of the non-payment of annual leave on cesser of his employment, in breach of Section 23(1) of the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997.  The Complainant also claims that he was not afforded any notice when he was dismissed, in breach of Sections 4(1) and 4(2) of the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act, 1973. The Complainant has a further claim that the Respondent failed to make a redundancy lump sum payment to him, in breach of Sections 7(1) and 7(2)(c) of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967.

The Complainant began working for the Respondent company on 1 March 2021. At that time, the company was called ‘Music and Montessori Academies Limited’. The Complainant was given his employment contract in July 2021, and he and the Respondent signed same in August 2021. The Complainant worked as the IT Systems Support and Logistics Manager in the company. The Complainant’s normal place of work was at the Respondent company’s office in Maynooth which was also the location of one of the company’s three Montessori schools.

The Complainant asserts that the contract which the Respondent gave to him in August 2021 made reference to an “Employee Handbook” which was to be given to him. That section of the contract said that the “Employee Handbook” contained, among other things, “the Organisation’s health and safety policy, disciplinary policy, grievance policy, and dignity at work policy.” The Complainant does not believe that he was ever given a copy of this Employee Handbook. On 12 May 2025, after his employment was terminated, he wrote a letter to the Respondent and requested a copy of the Employee Handbook, but he has never received any response to that request. The Complainant states that the name of the company was changed at the beginning of 2024 to ‘MCA Education Limited’. The Complainant continued working in the same role and at the same location. Therefore, the Complainant worked for the named Respondent company from 1 March 2021 until 28 April 2025, the day on which he was told that operations were to cease at least temporarily.

The Complainant states that at this juncture, the Director of the Respondent company was operating another company: ‘Bua Sportswear’. Although the Complainant was an employee first of Music and Montessori Academies Limited and then of MCA Education Limited (as evidenced by his contract and payslips), the Respondent often required him to carry out tasks for Bua Sportswear. From approximately 2022 onwards, the Complainant had to complain regularly to the Respondent about his salary being paid late. His salary was often not paid on the last day of the relevant month, as had been stipulated in his employment contract: It would usually be paid over the course of the following month or even the following two months.

The Complainant states that the situation became worse after the company’s name changed in January 2024. The Complainant made many requests that his salary be paid more promptly. In addition, the salary payment was often made in a number of smaller parts, instead of a simple single transfer of the full net salary. In addition, after the company changed its name in January 2024, the Complainant was concerned about the statutory deductions from his salary not being transferred to Revenue or the Department of Social Protection. From January 2024 to July 2025, the information in his online account with Revenue was that MCA Education Ltd was his employer, but that he had received no income from them and had paid no taxes in the form of Pay As You Earn or Universal Social Charge.

The Complainant asserts that the information in his online account with the Department of Social Protection was that he had paid no Pay-Related Social Insurance contributions in this time. This was despite the fact that he received a payslip for every month (albeit often late), and that these payslips showed that statutory deductions were being made from his salary. The Complainant was concerned about the tax deductions from his salary appearing not to be reaching Revenue, and he raised this issue a number of times with the Respondent. However, the Respondent did not resolve this issue at any time while the Complainant worked for the company.

The Complainant states that it is noteworthy that the PRSI contributions were finally entered on the Complainant’s record with the Department of Social Protection in June 2025, after the Complainant sought advice from Citizens Information and accordingly requested that a PRSI Inspector from the DSP examine why his PRSI contributions were not being paid. It is further noteworthy that the details of the Complainant’s salary and tax deductions were entered on his record with Revenue in July 2025. He had contacted Revenue on 3 March 2025 to ask them to investigate why this information was not being recorded, and he had sent a number of follow-up messages before noting in July 2025, that his Revenue record had been updated. In April 2025, as in previous months, the Complainant sent several emails and WhatsApp messages to the Respondent, asking for his delayed previous month’s salary to be paid and for his statutory deductions to be recorded with Revenue.

The Complainant asserts that as on previous occasions, the Director of the Respondent company advised that he was working to pay the full salary for the previous month to the Complainant and that the company was working to resolve its financial problems. On 17 April 2025, the Complainant received €1,000 of his March salary. The full net amount of the salary should have been €2,434.29. On 24 April 2025, the Complainant sent another WhatsApp message to the Respondent asking when he would receive the balance of his March salary. He also complained again about his statutory deductions not being reflected in his Revenue account. The response of the Respondent, by WhatsApp on 28 April, was “I think I will have to pause all activities until I have the current situation sorted out which will hopefully come with bank finance. The office will be closed until I can get us through this current issue and bring everything up to date.” Because the Respondent had said that the office would be closed, the Complainant did not return to the office and he waited for an update from the company.

On 1 May 2025 and again on 7 May 2025, the Complainant sent emails to the Respondent to ask whether and when he could go back to work and to state that he was ready to return to the office at any time. He also asked again about the outstanding part of his March salary; he asked when he would be paid his April salary; and he asked again for his salary deductions to be recorded in his Revenue record. On 12 May 2025, the Complainant wrote a letter to the Respondent, requesting that his outstanding salaries for March and April be paid to him, that his statutory deductions be recorded in his Revenue and Department of Social Protection accounts, and that he be given a copy of the Employee Handbook. The Complainant did not receive any response to his correspondence.

In mid-July 2025, after receiving extensive advice from Citizens Information, the Complainant had to accept that, given the lack of communication from his employer, it was possible his employment had been terminated on a permanent basis. He accepted that he must begin looking for a new job. The Complainant states that he was not informed that his employment had been terminated or given any explanation for this, the Complainant was also not paid the value of the annual leave that he had outstanding for the leave year of 2025. As of 28 April, he had been working full time for almost four months of the 2025 leave year. This means that he had accrued one and a third weeks of statutory annual leave. (For each month in which an employee works for more than 117 hours, they are accruing an annual leave entitlement of the equivalent of one third of a working week.) It appears that the company’s office was shut at the very start of 2025, only opening after the Christmas break on 6 January 2025. Therefore, it appears that the Complainant was on annual leave on 2 and 3 January. He then travelled abroad and spent the month of January 2025 working remotely. He returned to the office in Maynooth on 6 February 2025.

The Complainant asserts that he had accrued the value of €871.80 in annual leave in the four months to the end of April 2025 and that €261.54 of the salary paid to him in January 2025 was for the two days of annual leave that he had taken in that month. Therefore, he was owed €610.26 for unpaid annual leave when he left the company. In addition to this, the Complainant submits that he was given no notice of his redundancy, and no procedures were followed in letting him go and on that basis he was unfairly dismissed. The Complainant states that it is not clear whether the company did have a Disciplinary Procedure, but it is unlikely that the Procedure, if it did exist, allowed for dismissal with no warning or notice and no acknowledgement of requests for clarity from an employee who had been let go.

The Complainant states that the reason advanced by the Respondent  for the dismissal was due to the Company’s financial problems and the fact that the company could not afford to keep the Complainant employed and therefore the dismissal was as a result of redundancy.

For the purposes of the Unfair Dismissals Act, the Complainant submits the Respondent is in breach of the legislation as there was no process/procedures followed when it terminated his employment and consequently the actions of the Respondent were not reasonable.

The Complainant states that after he accepted that his employment had been terminated, he spent the next number of months looking for a new job.  At the same time, he made the request to the Department of Social Protection to inspect his PRSI contributions, and he pursued the request that he had sent to Revenue in March 2025 to examine why none of his PAYE and USC were being entered on his record. On 11 August 2025, the Complainant sent an RP77 form to the Respondent by registered post, in order to request his statutory redundancy payment. He also sent a scan of the form by email to the Respondent. On 21 August 2025, the registered post was returned to him, having not been delivered to the Respondent.  On 1 September 2025, the Complainant sent another RP77 form to the Respondent, this time by normal post. On 6 September 2025, he sent a scan that he had made of the RP77 form to the Respondent by email.  He did not receive any response, either by post or by email. The post was not returned to the Complainant.

The Complainant maintains that from 22 July 2025 to 6 October 2025, he applied for 40 jobs and he also attended a recruitment fair.

The Complainant submits that under the Unfair Dismissal’s legislation, an employer is required to give an employee information in writing of the procedure which is to be used in the event of the employee being dismissed. The Complainant asserts that the Respondent did not provide such written information to the Complainant nor was any structured procedure followed in the termination of his employment.

The Complainant contends that the Respondent never gave him any indication that his job was in danger and he was working until the day when the Respondent told him that the company was ceasing all activities, at least temporarily. The Respondent ultimately terminated the Complainant’s employment by sending a WhatsApp message informing him that they were ceasing all activities “until I have the current situation sorted out which will hopefully come with bank finance”. They did not communicate at all with the Complainant until five months later (at which point they had received the Complainant’s request for his redundancy payment and been informed of the Complainant’s non-payment of wages claim against the company).

The Complainant had been given no notice of his dismissal. There was no formal conversation regarding the dismissal or the reasons why it was happening or the fact that no notice was being given. The Complainant was not told that this situation of activities being ceased was a permanent situation. He had to draw that conclusion for himself in the subsequent months.

The Complainant asserts that it now appears that he was dismissed due to redundancy and that the reason for the dismissal may be viewed as reasonable but the conduct of the Respondent was certainly not reasonable: not giving the Complainant any warning that his job was in danger, not clearly telling him that he was being let go and failing to respond to any of the Complainant’s requests for clarification after dismissing him.  For these reasons, it is submitted that Respondent has breached the Act. When the Complainant could not get any replies to his requests from the Respondent about the status of his job or when he could return to work and he realised that he had been dismissed, he began looking for a new job.

The Complainant began a new job on 25 October 2025. The Complainant states that he was 25 weeks and 5 days (180 days) unemployed after being unfairly dismissed.

Non Payment of Outstanding Annual Leave

The Complainant states that under the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997, Section 23(1)(a) requires an employer to pay the value of any outstanding annual leave to an employee who is leaving their employment within a leave year. Given that the Complainant had, by the date of the termination of his employment, accrued one and a third working weeks of annual leave for that leave year, and given that he had only taken two days of annual leave at that point, he should have been paid the value of the outstanding annual leave in the amount of €610.26.

Minimum Notice

The Complainant states that the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act, 1973, Section 4(1) states that, for an employee who has worked for an employer for between two and five years, they must be given at least two weeks’ notice in the event of their dismissal. The Respondent in this case did not give any notice at all and did not even tell the Complainant that his employment was being terminated. The Director of the company sent a WhatsApp to the Complainant stating “I think I will have to pause all activities until I have the current situation sorted out which will hopefully come with bank finance. The office will be closed until I can get us through this current issue and bring everything up to date.” The Respondent failed to answer any of the Complainant’s emails or WhatsApp messages asking for clarification on when he could return to work. Therefore, it is submitted that the Respondent has breached the legislation and that the Complainant is entitled to be paid the value of those two weeks, which equates to €1,307.69.

Redundancy Payments Act

The Redundancy Payments Act, 1967, Section 7(1) states that an employee, who is made redundant having been in the service of the employer for at least two years and who has been paying social insurance contributions in this employment for at least that time period, is entitled to a redundancy payment. In this case, the Complainant had worked for the Respondent for 4.16 years (having started on 1 March 2021 and left the company on 28 April 2025). He is entitled to a redundancy payment of the equivalent of two weeks’ salary per week worked plus one extra week. In the Complainant’s case, this is 9.32 weeks’ salary: (4.16 x 2) + 1.

The Complainant states that in the year in which he left, his annual salary was €33,999.96. This means that his weekly salary was €653.85. As the maximum amount payable is the person’s gross weekly salary or €600 per week (whichever is lower), he should receive €600 for each of the weeks of entitlement. Therefore, he should receive a redundancy payment of €5,592.00.

Conclusions

Unfair Dismissal

It is submitted that the Complainant was unfairly dismissed from his job at the Respondent company, as the Respondent did not follow any procedure in dismissing him, as is required by the Code of Practice on Grievance and Disciplinary Procedures. The Complainant was not informed prior to his dismissal that his job was in danger; he was given no notice of the dismissal and the Respondent did not reply to any of his requests for clarification, not even to inform him that his job was now gone.

It is furthermore submitted that the conduct of the Respondent, in dismissing the Complainant, was not reasonable, which also renders the dismissal unfair.  The Complainant submits that the period of unemployment after his dismissal lasted 25 weeks and 5 days. The Complainant further states that given the fact that the Respondent did not even inform the Complainant that he had been dismissed and did not respond to his attempts to contact them and the Complainant had to work out for himself that he had been dismissed; he experienced undue stress in trying to get clarity and trying to establish whether he should apply for a social welfare payment.

Non Payment of Outstanding Annual Leave

The Complainant maintains that he is owed the value of the annual leave which was outstanding for 2025 when he was dismissed which equates to €610.26.

Minimum Notice

The Complainant submits that he is entitled to be paid the value of two weeks’ salary in lieu of the notice in the amount of €1,307.69.

Redundancy

The Complainant states that he is owed a redundancy lump sum of €5,592.

Redundancy Payments Act

The Respondent states that it accepts that the Complainant is entitled to a statutory redundancy payment. It states that this claim is not disputed. The Respondent states that there was no work available for the Complainant or any other employee from the date the company ceased trading.

Minimum Notice

The Respondent states that it accepts that the Complainant was not provided with any formal notice prior to his redundancy. The Respondent acknowledges that the Complainant is entitled to his minimum notice period based on his length of service. The Respondent states that it is agreeable to addressing this matter and making payment in lieu of notice as required by law.

Unfair Dismissal

The Respondent states that it does not accept that there are any valid grounds for a claim of unfair dismissal. It states that the Complainant was made redundant for genuine operational reasons. The Respondent states at the time of cessation, the Complainant was the sole remaining employee. It states that the trading activities of the company in the division he worked for had come to an end due to significant financial difficulties that the business had been experiencing for a considerable period of time. The Respondent submits that as there was no longer any business activity to sustain the role, this was a genuine redundancy situation and not an unfair dismissal.

Hours of Work/Annual Leave Entitlement      

The Respondent asserts that this claim relates to a period of absence from late December until second week of February. The Respondent states that the Complainant travelled to India over the Christmas period remaining in India until early February as was his habit across his years employed with the company. The Respondent states that historically, the company had allowed the Complainant extended time off to visit family out of generosity and goodwill.

The Respondent states that the time difference with India and the fact that this removed the Complainant from his stock checking and shipping management duties means that over 5 weeks away from the office could not be considered as a “working from home” arrangement. The Respondent asserts that in previous years the Complainant had added further time away during the rest of the year as well as enjoying an arrangement where he worked from home every morning and left early on a regular basis during the Summer for cricket training and also enjoyed additional days off to play representative cricket. The Respondent states that in all prior years, these arrangements meant that he far exceeded his holiday entitlement and enjoyed very favourable and flexible working arrangements.

The Respondent states that during the full period of his absence (4 weeks in January and 1 week in February) there were only 15 WhatsApp communications sent or received relating to his work, an average of less than one interaction per day. The Respondent submits that this volume of contact does not constitute substantive work. The Respondent states that its position is that the Complainant was on extended annual leave visiting his family during this period.

I have carefully reviewed all the evidence provided by both parties in the within claims.

Organisation of Working Time Act - Annual Leave Entitlement

I find that this complaint is well-founded.  I order the Respondent to pay the Complainant in respect of his annual leave entitlement in the amount of €610.26.

Minimum Notice

I find that this complaint is well-founded.  I order the Respondent to pay the Complainant his entitlement to minimum notice in respect of two weeks’ salary in lieu of the notice in the amount of €1,307.69.

Redundancy Payments Act

Based on the evidence heard, I find that the Complainant’s employment was terminated by reason of redundancy within the meaning of s. 7(2) of the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967 – 2022, and that the Complainant is entitled to a redundancy payment in accordance with the following criteria:

Employment start date: 1 March 2021

Employment end date: 28 April 2025.

Gross weekly remuneration: €653.85

This award is made subject to the Complainant having been in insurable employment under the Social Welfare Acts during the relevant period.

Unfair Dismissals Act

While I accept that the Respondent established a genuine redundancy situation in the within matter and that the Complainant was inevitably going to lose his position with the Company. On the basis of the evidence heard at hearing, I find that the Respondent failed to afford the Complainant fair procedures in the implementation of the redundancy by failing to engage in meaningful consultation / lack of warning / failing to consider representations. Accordingly, I find that the Complainant has established that his dismissal was procedurally unfair within the meaning of the Unfair Dismissals Act.

I order the Respondent to pay compensation in the amount of €2,500 to the Complainant in respect of his unfair dismissal on procedural grounds. This award reflects the shortcomings of the Respondent based on procedural deficiencies in the manner in which the Complainant’s employment was terminated.

Organisation of Working Time Act - Annual Leave Entitlement

I find that this complaint is well-founded.  I order the Respondent to pay the Complainant in respect of his annual leave entitlement in the amount of €610.26.

Minimum Notice

I find that this complaint is well-founded.  I order the Respondent to pay the Complainant his entitlement to minimum notice in respect of two weeks’ salary in lieu of the notice in the amount of €1,307.69.

Redundancy Payments Act

Based on the evidence heard, I find that the Complainant’s employment was terminated by reason of redundancy within the meaning of s. 7(2) of the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967 – 2022, and that the Complainant is entitled to a redundancy payment in accordance with the following criteria:

Employment start date: 1 March 2021

Employment end date: 28 April 2025.

Gross weekly remuneration: €653.85

This award is made subject to the Complainant having been in insurable employment under the Social Welfare Acts during the relevant period.

Unfair Dismissals Act

I find that the Complainant’s dismissal by the Respondent was procedurally unfair within the meaning of the Unfair Dismissals Act. I award compensation in the amount of €2,500 to the Complainant which is just and equitable in all the circumstances.

Redundancy Payments Act, Unfair Dismissals Act, Minimum Notice, Organisation of Working Time Act