DWT15102

2. The Respondent is a limited company registered in Northern Ireland. It operates,inter alia, an employment agency business from offices in Sligo.

3. The Claimant commenced employment with the Respondent as a temporary agency worker on 19 November 2013. His employment ceased on 16 January 2015.

4. The Claimant’s uncontested evidence to the Court is that he availed himself of a period of unpaid annual leave over the 2013 Christmas period but otherwise received no annual leave during the leave year ending on 31 March 2014. It is common case that the Claimant applied for 3 days’ annual leave in March 2014 but it transpired that he in fact worked (and was paid for) the days in question. There is a conflict of evidence between the parties as to why the Claimant did not take annual leave on the days for which he had requested it. The Respondent’s position is that the Claimant decided to work the days rather than take annual leave because a certain amount of overtime was available and it was financially more beneficial to the Claimant to work the days rather than take annual leave. The Claimant’s evidence is that the Respondent prevented him taking the annual leave because of business needs.

5. It is common case therefore that the Claimant received no paid annual leave in respect of the hours he worked during the annual leave year 2013-14. The Respondent submitted to the Court that the Claimant had forfeited any annual leave due to him for the aforementioned annual leave year as he had failed to take the leave during the leave year.

6. The Claimant subsequently took 6 days’ paid annual leave ending 5 August 2014.

7. The Claimant referred a complaint to a Rights Commissioner some time in or around late July 2014 alleging his employer had breached section 19 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. As a matter of law, this complaint could only relate to the annual leave year 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014 as the claim was submitted in the course of the following annual leave year.

8. The Court, having considered the parties’ written and oral submissions, and the additional documentation furnished to the Court by the Respondent subsequently, rejects the Respondent’s appeal.

9. The right of a Worker to avail himself/herself to a period of paid annual leave is a fundamental social right guaranteed by European and domestic law. (See, for example, the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union inFederatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging v Staat der Nederlanden[2006] E.C.R. I-3423 and the determination of this Court inCementation Skanska v CarrollDWT 38/2003.)

10. In consequence of the Respondent’s failure to ensure that the Claimant availed himself of his statutory entitlement to paid annual leave during the annual leave year 2013-14 the Court directs the Respondent to pay the Claimant compensation in the sum of €3,000.

The Court so determines.