Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Bar Assistant

A Bar Owner

Representatives

Citizen’s Information Centre

The Respondent

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00031057-001

23/09/2019

The complainant’s employment ended due to the respondent ceasing to trade. The respondent failed to process the redundancy as required.

The complainant commenced work for the respondent on 28th February 2011 his employment ended on 1st November 2017 when his employer ceased trading. His employer had instructed various professionals to act on his behalf including to deal with redundancy issues. There were substantial delays and the employer was unaware of the time limit of one year. The RP50 form was submitted on 27th June 2019 and the complainant received a letter from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection stating that his claim was outside the time limit.

The Respondent confirmed the evidence given by the complainant. He had appointed an insolvency practitioner to act on his behalf.   This practitioner ceased trading and the appropriate forms were not processed.

Section 24 of the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 states;

(2A)     Where an employee who fails to make a claim for a lump sum within the period of 52 weeks mentioned in subsection (1) (as amended) makes such a claim before the end of the period of 104 weeks beginning on the date of dismissal or the date of termination of employment, the adjudication officer, if he is satisfied   that the employee would have been entitled to the lump sum and that the failure was due to a reasonable cause, may declare the employee to be entitled to the lump sum and the employee shall thereupon become so entitled.

Based on the evidence of both the complainant and the respondent I am satisfied that the complainant would have been entitled to a lump sum payment in accordance with the Act and the failure to claim within 52 weeks was due to a reasonable cause and therefore the period of 104 weeks applies.

The appeal under Section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Act is allowed and I order the respondent to pay the complainant the statutory redundancy payment calculated in accordance with the Act, based on the employment period from 28th February 2011 until 1st November 2017, and based on a weekly wage of €449.46 subject to the complainant having been in insurable employment for the relevant period under the Social Welfare Acts

redundancy