Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Therapist/Receptionist

A Health Clinic

Representatives

Arek Muszynski

 Lisa Grehan LM Consultancy Services

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-00039167-001

13/08/2020

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

CA-00039167-002

13/08/2020

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

CA-00039167-005

13/08/2020

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

CA-00039167-006

13/08/2020

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

CA-00039167-007

13/08/2020

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00039167-008 WITHDRAWN

13/08/2020

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 28 of the Safety, Health & Welfare at Work Act, 2005

CA-00039167-009

13/08/2020

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent as a therapist/receptionist on 5 February 2018 and her employment ended on 4 August 2020. She worked a 37-hour week for a gross salary of €404.55; net €350.

The Complainant was laid off from 13 March 2020 due to the Covid lockdown restrictions. The Complainant had an unblemished record of employment until 4/8/2020 when the claimant was made redundant.

CA-00039167 – 001 – Complaint seeking adjudication under section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Act 1967:

The Complainant was made redundant on 4 August 2020. This was confirmed by email from the Respondent to the Complainant on that date. The Complainant was initially laid off on 13 March 2020 and had not worked anywhere else due to the restrictions of ‘Level 5’ having been imposed (Full Lockdown).  Despite the restrictions being lifted on 26 June 2020 and the Clinic opening on that day, the Complainant was not afforded a return to work. She was still laid off and receiving Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).

The Complainant enquired about the redundancy payment and the minimum notice and was told that the accountant would deal with that issue. The Complainant, on several occasions, enquired about her outstanding payments owed, however the Respondent did not provide any details of such payments.

CA-00039167-002 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 12 of the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act 1973:

The Claimant was made redundant on4 August 2020 however the Respondent deliberately withheld paying the Minimum Notice. The Complainant asserts that she was due two weeks’ notice based on her service.

CA-00039167–005 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 – Annual Leave:

Upon cessation of the Complainant’s   employment by the employer, the Complainant accrued annual leave and had carried over annual leave which she was unable to take due to the pandemic. The Complainant believes she is owed approximately 15 days of annual leave, including the carryover of annual leave. The Complainant submits the Respondent did not provide the opportunity to calculate the outstanding annual leave because the Respondent was not keeping the required statutory records under the Act including the working time and records for breaks. Due to the lack of the records, the Complainant submits the annual leave is only an estimated figure.

CA-00039167–006 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 – Public Holidays:

 The Complainant submits that whilst working through 2018 and most of 2019, she worked on Public Holidays without being remunerated accordingly as per the Act. When the Complainant   became aware that she was entitled to be compensated for working Public Holidays, she submits that the need to carry out work on Public Holidays was stopped by the Respondent.  The Complainant submits that even though she was laid off due to pandemic, she was still entitled to be paid for Public Holidays and the Respondent failed to pay Public Holidays on time or at the cessation of the employment. The Complainant states she is entitled to be paid for the following four bank holidays in 2020: St Patrick’s Day 17 March, May Day 04 May, June Bank Holiday 01 June and August Bank Holiday 03 August 2020.

CA-00039167-007 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994:   

The Complainant submits that she never received her written terms and condition of employment under section 3 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994.

CA-00039167-009 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 28 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005:

The Complainant submits that she made a protected act, namely informing the Respondent of her reluctance to attend at the work place for some duties, due to the fact of   being restricted to travel beyond 5km zone for essential purposes only, during the pandemic. The Complainant submits that the penalisation for such a disclosure was that she was not taken back by the Respondent when the clinic opened again on 26 June 2020.

CA-00039167 – 001 – Complaint seeking adjudication under section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Act 1967:

The Respondent accepts that there was a valid redundancy under the Act but that the reason that the Complainant did not receive her redundancy sum was because the money was not there in the business to pay her.

CA-00039167-002 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 12 of the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act 1973:

The Respondent gave no evidence in rebuttal of the Complainant’s submission on this complaint.

CA-00039167–005 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 – Annual Leave:

The Respondent refuted the claim that the Respondent is owed 15 days annual leave. The Respondent has no recall of any agreement to carry over leave from 2019 into 2020. According to the Respondent’s calculations the Complainant is entitled only to 26.5 hours only for 2020.

CA-00039167–006 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 – Public Holidays:

The Respondent gave no evidence in rebuttal of this complaint.

CA-00039167-007 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994: 

The Respondent submits that there was a statement prepared for the Complainant but accepts that the Complainant did not receive a copy.

CA-00039167-009 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 28 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005:

The Respondent refutes the allegation by the Complainant that the Complainant ever made a protected act or otherwise, nor that any penalisation arose from a protected act. The Respondent has no recall of the Complainant making an issue of the fact that she could not travel to her workplace due to Covid restrictions. Furthermore, the Respondent submits that the sole reason for not taking the Complainant back was purely financial difficulties, which in turn led to her redundancy. The Respondent asserts that her business had fallen by 40% even when lockdown restrictions were lifted in 2020. 

CA-00039167 – 001 – Complaint seeking adjudication under section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Act 1967:

The applicable law:

The general right to redundancy payment of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967, as amended, provides as follows at section 7:

(1) An employee, if he is dismissed by his employer by reason of redundancy or is laid off or kept on short-time for the minimum period, shall, subject to this Act, be entitled to the payment of moneys which shall be known (and are in this Act referred to) as redundancy payment provided—

(a) he has been employed for the requisite period, and

(b) he was an employed contributor in employment which was insurable for all benefits under the Social Welfare Acts, immediately before the date of the termination of his employment or had ceased to be ordinarily employed in employment which was so insurable in the period of four years ending on that date.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), an employee who is dismissed shall be taken to be dismissed by reason of redundancy if for one or more reasons not related to the employee concerned the dismissal is attributable wholly or mainly to—

(a) the fact that his employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was employed by him, or has ceased or intends to cease, to carry on that business in the place where the employee was so employed, or

(b) the fact that the requirements of that business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind in the place where he was so employed have ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish, or

(c) the fact that his employer has decided to carry on the business with fewer or no employees, whether by requiring the work for which the employee had been employed (or had been doing before his dismissal) to be done by other employees or otherwise, or

(d) the fact that his employer has decided that the work for which the employee had been employed (or had been doing before his dismissal) should henceforward be done in a different manner for which the employee is not sufficiently qualified or trained, or

(e) the fact that his employer has decided that the work for which the employee had been employed (or had been doing before his dismissal) should henceforward be done by a person who is also capable of doing other work for which the employee is not sufficiently qualified or trained.

The Respondent accepts that there was a valid redundancy situation in that the Complainant’s work ceased due to a financial downturn.  I find that the Complainant was dismissed by reason of redundancy and is entitled to a statutory redundancy sum based on the following criteria:

Date of commencement of employment:        05/02/2018

Date of termination of employment:                04/08/2020

Gross weekly Pay:                   €404.55

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

CA-00039167-002 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 12 of the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act 1973:

Section 4 of the minimum notice sets out the relevant minimum statutory notice:

 (1) An employer shall, in order to terminate the contract of employment of an employee who has been in his continuous service for a period of thirteen weeks or more, give to that employee a minimum period of notice calculated in accordance with the provisions of subsection (2) of this section.

(2) The minimum notice to be given by an employer to terminate the contract of employment of his employee shall be—

…(b) if the employee has been in the continuous service of his employer for two years or more, but less than five years, two weeks.

The redress provision at section 12 of the Act states:

 (1) A decision of an adjudication officer under section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 in relation to a complaint of a contravention of section 4(2) or 5 may, where the adjudication officer finds that that section was contravened by the employer in relation to the employee who presented the complaint, include a direction that the employer concerned pay to the employee compensation for any loss sustained by the employee by reason of the contravention.

(2) A decision of an adjudication officer under section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 in relation to a dispute as to the entitlements of an employee under section 6 may include such directions as the adjudication officer considers appropriate.

The Respondent gave no rebutting evidence on this complaint. The Complainant has more than two years service, but less than five years   therefore section 4(2)(b) applies.  I find that the Respondent contravened the Act by not giving the Complainant her proper two weeks notice of termination of employment. I direct the Respondent to pay the Complainant compensation of €809, equivalent to two weeks remuneration.

CA-00039167–005 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 – Annual Leave:

The Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 deals with entitlement to annual leave at Sections 19 and 20. The following are the relevant provisions

(1) Subject to the First Schedule (which contains transitional provisions in respect of the leave years 1996 to 1998), an employee shall be entitled to paid annual leave (in this Act referred to as “annual leave”) equal to—

(a) 4 working weeks in a leave year in which he or she works at least 1,365 hours (unless it is a leave year in which he or she changes employment),

(b) one-third of a working week for each month in the leave year in which he or she works at least 117 hours, or

(c) 8 per cent of the hours he or she works in a leave year (but subject to a maximum of 4 working weeks):

Provided that if more than one of the preceding paragraphs is applicable in the case concerned and the period of annual leave of the employee, determined in accordance with each of those paragraphs, is not identical, the annual leave to which the employee shall be entitled shall be equal to whichever of those periods is the greater…

Section 25 outlines the responsibilities of employers in keeping proper records:

 (1) An employer shall keep, at the premises or place where his or her employee works or, if the employee works at two or more premises or places, the premises or place from which the activities that the employee is employed to carry on are principally directed or controlled, such records, in such form, if any, as may be prescribed, as will show whether the provisions of this F18 [ Act and, where applicable, the Activities of Doctors in Training Regulations ] are being complied with in relation to the employee and those records shall be retained by the employer for at least 3 years from the date of their making.

(2) The Minister may by regulations exempt from the application of subsection (1) any specified class or classes of employer and regulations under this subsection may provide that any such exemption shall not have effect save to the extent that specified conditions are complied with.

(3) An employer who, without reasonable cause, fails to comply with subsection (1) shall be guilty of an offence.

(4) Without prejudice to subsection (3), where an employer fails to keep records under subsection (1) in respect of his or her compliance with a particular provision of this F18 [ Act or the Activities of Doctors in Training Regulations in relation to an employee, the onus of proving, in proceedings before a rights commissioner or the Labour Court, that the said provision was complied with in relation to the employee shall lie on the employer.

27. Complaints to adjudication officer:

…(3) A decision of an adjudication officer under section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 in relation to a complaint of a contravention of a relevant provision shall do one or more of the following, namely—

(a) declare that the complaint was or, as the case may be, was not well founded,

(b) require the employer to comply with the relevant provision,

(c) require the employer to pay to the employee compensation of such amount (if any) as is just and equitable having regard to all the circumstances, but not exceeding 2 years remuneration in respect of the employee's employment.

The Complainant submits that she has 15 days outstanding but accepts that this is an approximate figure consisting of a carryover of days from 2019 and her entitlement for 2020. The Respondent denies that there was any agreement to carryover days and calculates instead that the Complainant is entitled to 26.5 hours for 2020. I note that there were no proper records of annual leave submitted by the Respondent, though the burden of proof is on the Respondent to submit such records under section 25 of the Act, as outlined above.  However, there is also an initial burden imposed on the Complainant to make at least a plausible attempt to show an account of days taken in 2019, other than make an equivocal claim for 15 outstanding days. Having considered the evidence submitted on this claim I find that the complaint is well founded. However, I consider that an award of €566, equivalent to 7 days’ pay, to be just and equitable having regard to all the circumstances.

CA-00039167–006 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 – Public Holidays:

21.— (1) Subject to the provisions of this section, an employee shall, in respect of a public holiday, be entitled to whichever one of the following his or her employer determines, namely—

(a) a paid day off on that day,

(b) a paid day off within a month of that day,

(c) an additional day of annual leave,

(d) an additional day’s pay:

Provided that if the day on which the public holiday falls is a day on which the employee would, apart from this subsection, be entitled to a paid day off this subsection shall have effect as if paragraph (a) were omitted therefrom.

(2) An employee may, not later than 21 days before the public holiday concerned, request his or her employer to make, as respects the employee, a determination under subsection (1) in relation to a particular public holiday and notify the employee of that determination at least 14 days before that holiday.

(3) If an employer fails to comply with a request under subsection (2), he or she shall be deemed to have determined that the entitlement of the employee concerned under subsection (1) shall be to a paid day off on the public holiday concerned or, in a case to which the proviso to subsection (1) applies, to an additional day’s pay.

(4) Subsection (1) shall not apply, as respects a particular public holiday, to an employee (not being an employee who is a whole-time employee) unless he or she has worked for the employer concerned at least 40 hours during the period of 5 weeks ending on the day before that public holiday.

(5) Subsection (1) shall not apply, as respects a particular public holiday, to an employee who is, other than on the commencement of this section, absent from work immediately before that public holiday in any of the cases specified in the Third Schedule.

(6) For the avoidance of doubt, the reference in the proviso to subsection (1) to a day on which the employee is entitled to a paid day off includes a reference to any day on which he or she is not required to work, the pay to which he or she is entitled in respect of a week or other period being regarded, for this purpose, as receivable by him or her in respect of the day or days in that period on which he or she is not required to work as well as the day or days in that period on which he or she is required to work.

Schedule Three of the Act, as mentioned above, gives the exceptions:

Each of the following are the cases mentioned in section 21 (5) of absence by the employee concerned from work immediately before the relevant public holiday:

1. such an absence, in excess of 52 consecutive weeks, by reason of an injury sustained by the employee in an occupational accident (within the meaning of Chapter 10 of Part II of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1993),

2. such an absence, in excess of 26 consecutive weeks, by reason of an injury sustained by the employee in any accident (not being an accident referred to in paragraph 1) or by reason of any disease from which the employee suffers or suffered,

3. such an absence, in excess of 13 consecutive weeks, caused by any reason not referred to in paragraph 1 or 2 but being an absence authorised by the employer, including a lay-off,

4. such an absence by reason of a strike in the business or industry in which the employee is employed.

The Respondent gave no rebutting evidence on this claim. The Complainant submits that she is entitled to four days because four public holidays occurred in the period between her initial lay-off on 13 March 2020 to her redundancy on 04 August 2020. However, the Third Schedule of the Organisation of Working Time Act limits the entitlement to public holidays to a period of 13 weeks from lay off which was 12 June 2020. Only three bank holidays occurred in this period.

I find that the Complaint is well founded, and I direct the Respondent to pay the Complainant compensation of €243, the equivalent of three days remuneration.   

CA-00039167-007 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994: 

The relevant law is found at section 3 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994, as amended, where the pertinent sections provide as follows:

 (1) An employer shall, not later than 2 months after the commencement of an employee's employment with the employer, give or cause to be given to the employee a statement in writing containing the following particulars of the terms of the employee's employment, that …

(c) the place of work or, where there is no fixed or main place of work, a statement specifying that the employee is required or permitted to work at various places,

(d) the title of the job or nature of the work for which the employee is employed,

(e) the date of commencement of the employee's contract of employment,

(fa) a reference to any registered employment agreement or employment regulation order which applies to the employee and confirmation of where the employee may obtain a copy of such agreement or order…

… (1A) Without prejudice to subsection (1), an employer shall, not later than 5 days after the commencement of an employee's employment with the employer, give or cause to be given to the employee a statement in writing containing the following particulars of the terms of the employee's employment, that is to say:

(a) the full names of the employer and the employee;

(b) the address of the employer in the State or, where appropriate, the address of the principal place of the relevant business of the employer in the State or the registered office (within the meaning of the Companies Act 2014);

(c) in the case of a temporary contract of employment, the expected duration thereof or, if the contract of employment is for a fixed term, the date on which the contract expires;

(d) the rate or method of calculation of the employee's remuneration and the pay reference period for the purposes of the National Minimum Wage Act 2000;

(e) the number of hours which the employer reasonably expects the employee to work—

(i) per normal working day, and

(ii) per normal working week…

Redress in the Act is described as follows at Section 7(2):

 A decision of an adjudication officer under section 41of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 in relation to a complaint of a contravention ofsections 3, 4, 5, 6or 6C  shall do one or more of the following, namely—

(a) declare that the complaint was or, as the case may be, was not well founded,

(b) either—

(i) confirm all or any of the particulars contained or referred to in any statement furnished by the employer under section 3, 4, 5, 6or 6C, or

(ii) alter or add to any such statement for the purpose of correcting any inaccuracy or omission in the statement and the statement as so altered or added to shall be deemed to have been given to the employee by the employer,

(c) require the employer to give or cause to be given to the employee concerned a written statement containing such particulars as may be specified by the adjudication officer,

(d)in relation to a complaint of a contravention under change section 3, 4, 5, or 6, and without prejudice to any order made under paragraph (e)  order the employer to pay to the employee compensation of such amount (if any) as the adjudication officer considers just and equitable having regard to all of the circumstances, but not exceeding 4 weeks ’remuneration in respect of the employee’s employment calculated in accordance with regulations under section 17 of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.

 (e) in relation to a complaint of a contravention under section 6C, and without prejudice to any order made under paragraph (d), order the employer to pay to the employee compensation of such amount (if any) as the adjudication officer considers just and equitable having regard to all of the circumstances, but not exceeding 4 weeks ’remuneration in respect of the employee’s employment calculated in accordance with regulations under section 17of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977. 

 The Complainant submits that she never received a statement of her terms and conditions from the Respondent during the period she was employed. The Respondent accepted that no written terms were given to the Complainant. It should be emphasised that compensation, if any, must be within the bounds of what is fair and equitable having regard to all the circumstances. No evidence was submitted that the non-receipt of terms of employment created any hardship for the Complainant nor did she seek such terms during his employment. I therefore find that the complaint is well founded but that compensation should be at the lesser end of the scale. I order the Respondent to pay the Complainant the sum of €404, equivalent to one week’s wage.

CA-00039167-009 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 28 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005:  

Section 27 of the Act deals with penalisation and protection for employees as follows:

(1) In this section “penalisation” includes any act or omission by an employer or a person acting on behalf of an employer that affects, to his or her detriment, an employee with respect to any term or condition of his or her employment.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1), penalisation includes—

(a) suspension, lay-off or dismissal (including a dismissal within the meaning of the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 to 2001), or the threat of suspension, lay-off or dismissal,

(b) demotion or loss of opportunity for promotion,

(c) transfer of duties, change of location of place of work, reduction in wages or change in working hours,

(d) imposition of any discipline, reprimand or other penalty (including a financial penalty), and

(e) coercion or intimidation.

(3) An employer shall not penalise or threaten penalisation against an employee for—

(a) acting in compliance with the relevant statutory provisions,

(b) performing any duty or exercising any right under the relevant statutory provisions,

(c) making a complaint or representation to his or her safety representative or employer or the Authority, as regards any matter relating to safety, health or welfare at work,

(d) giving evidence in proceedings in respect of the enforcement of the relevant statutory provisions,

( e) being a safety representative or an employee designated under section 11or appointed under section 18to perform functions under this Act, or

( f) subject to subsection (6), in circumstances of danger which the employee reasonably believed to be serious and imminent and which he or she could not reasonably have been expected to avert, leaving (or proposing to leave) or, while the danger persisted, refusing to return to his or her place of work or any dangerous part of his or her place of work, or taking (or proposing to take) appropriate steps to protect himself or herself or other persons from the danger.

(4) The dismissal of an employee shall be deemed, for the purposes of the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 to 2001, to be an unfair dismissal if it results wholly or mainly from penalisation as referred to in subsection (2)(a).

(5) If penalisation of an employee, in contravention of subsection (3), constitutes a dismissal of the employee within the meaning of the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 to 2001, relief may not be granted to the employee in respect of that penalisation both under this Part and under those Acts.

(6) For the purposes of subsection (3)(f), in determining whether the steps which an employee took (or proposed to take) were appropriate, account shall be taken of all the circumstances and the means and advice available to him or her at the relevant time.

(7) Where the reason (or, if more than one, the principal reason) for the dismissal of an employee is that specified in subsection (3)(f), the employee shall not be regarded as unfairly dismissed if the employer shows that it was (or would have been) so negligent for the employee to take the steps which he or she took (or proposed to take) that a reasonable employer might have dismissed him or her for taking (or proposing to take) them.

The recognised seminal case in relation to the interpretation of the Act is Toni and Guy Blackrock v Paul O’Neill [2010] 21 E.L.R. where the Labour Court set out the test to be applied in determining whether a complainant has made out the necessary causal link between the detriment complained of and the reporting of the protected Act:

“It is clear from the language of this section that in order to make out a complaint of penalisation it is necessary for a claimant to establish that the determent of which he or she complains was imposed “for” having committed one of the acts protected by subsection 3. Thus, the detriment giving rise to the complaint must have been incurred because of, or in retaliation for, the Claimant having committed a protected act. This suggests that where there is more than one causal factor in the chain of events leading to the detriment complained of, the commission of a protected act must be an operative cause in the sense that “but for” the Claimant having committed the protected act he or she would not have suffered the detriment. This involves a consideration of the motive or reasons which influenced the decision maker in imposing the impugned detriment.”

A more precise description of the burden of proof was further given by the Court in Toni & Guy

“….it seems to the Court that a form of shifting burden of proof, similar to that in employment equality law should be applied in the instant case. Thus, the claimant must establish, on the balance of probabilities, that he made complaints concerning health and safety. It is then necessary for him to show that, having regard to the circumstances of the case, it is apt to infer from subsequent events that his complaints were an operative consideration leading to his dismissal. If those two limbs of the test are satisfied it is for the respondent to satisfy the Court, on credible evidence and to the normal civil standard, that the complaints relied upon did not influence the claimant's dismissal.”

In this instant case the Complainant must establish: (a) on the balance of probabilities, that she committed a protected act, (b) that she suffered a detriment (c) that having regard to the circumstances, it is apt to infer from subsequent events that the protected act was an operative consideration leading to the detriment imposed. If both limbs are satisfied, the burden shifts to the Respondent to show, on credible evidence and to the normal civil standard, that the protected act did not influence the detriment imposed.

The Complainant did not give any cogent evidence that she committed a protected act under section 27. She stated that she told her employer that she would not be able to travel to the workplace because of Covid 19 instructions. However, she also submitted that she had travelled to the workplace during a purported lockdown period to assist a person in carrying a treatment couch into the clinic. The Employer denied that she was ever told that the Complainant had a difficulty travelling to the workplace and furthermore that the continued lay-off and subsequent redundancy was purely for economic reasons. I found the Complainant’s evidence to be unconvincing and inconsistent with regard to penalisation. The Complainant accepted that there was a genuine economic reason for the redundancy and did not argue unfair dismissal, but also labelled the earlier continued lay off as a detriment, which ended naturally, but unfortunately, in redundancy. I am satisfied that the continued lay off was as a result of an economic downturn in the business. I find that the Complainant did not discharge the burden of proof that she committed a protected act nor that she was penalised for doing so.  I conclude that the Complaint is not well founded.    

CA-00039167-001:

Section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967 – 2012 requires that I make a decision in relation to the complaint in accordance with the relevant redress provisions under that Act. I find that the Complainant was dismissed by reason of redundancy and is entitled to a statutory redundancy sum based on the following criteria:

Date of commencement of employment:        05/02/2018

Date of termination of employment:                04/08/2020

Gross weekly Pay:                   €404.55

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

Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 requires that I make a decision in relation to the complaints in accordance with the relevant redress provisions under Schedule 6 of that Act.

CA-00039167-002 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 12 of the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act 1973:

I find that the Respondent contravened the Act by not paying the Complainant 2 weeks wage in lieu of notices and I direct the Respondent to pay compensation of €809.

CA-00039167–005 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 – Annual Leave:

I find that the Complaint is well founded, and I direct the Respondent to pay the Complainant the compensation of €566.

CA-00039167–006 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 – Public Holidays:

I find that the Complaint is well founded, and I direct the Respondent to pay the Complainant compensation of €243.

CA-00039167-007 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994: 

I find that the Complaint is well founded, and I order the Respondent to pay the Complainant the sum of €404.

CA-00039167-009 Complaint seeking adjudication under section 28 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005:  

I find that the Complaint is not well founded.

Redundancy Payments Act 1967, Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act 1973, Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, Annual Leave, Public Holidays, Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994; Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, Penalisation.