FULL RECOMMENDATION
REDUNDANCY PAYMENTS ACTS, 1967 TO 2014 PARTIES : MS RUTH JONES - AND - MR PADRAIG (OTHERWISE PADRAIC OR PARAIC) CONNOLLY (REPRESENTED BY MR JOHN HARRINGTON) DIVISION :
SUBJECT: 1.Appeal Of Adjudication Officer Decision No(S) ADJ-00024106. BACKGROUND TO THE APPEAL: The Parties to this appeal are Ms Ruth Jones (‘the Complainant’) and Mr Padraig (otherwise ‘Padraic’ or 'Paraic') Connolly. It is Mr Connolly’s appeal from a decision of an Adjudication Officer (ADJ-00024106, dated 26 August 2020) under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 (‘the Act’). Notice of Appeal was received from Mr Connolly on 6 October 2020. The Court heard the appeal on 11 February 2021 in a virtual courtroom. Mr Connolly did not make an appearance at the hearing on that date but purported to delegate Mr John Harrington “to work on [his] behalf”. Therefore, the Court set the matter down for a resumed hearing on 8 April 2022 to allow Mr Connolly an opportunity to give direct evidence to the Court. Mr Connolly chose not to avail himself of that opportunity. It follows that the Court did not receive any direct evidence from the Respondent in the course of hearing the within appeal. THE COMPLAINT UNDER THE ACT: The Complainant is a litigant in person. She submitted a very brief written outline of her complaint to the Court in which she states: “I worked for Padraic Connolly from 2008 to 2019. I seek (sic) redundancy payment for the 11 years I worked for Padraic Connolly.” The Complainant succeeded at first instance. The Adjudication Officer held: “I find that the Complainant’s claim for redundancy is well-founded and she is, therefore, entitled to statutory redundancy based on her service from 1 February 2008 to 23 August 2019, subject to her PRSI status.” FACTUAL MATRIX: The Complainant commenced working with the Respondent, a horse breeder/stud farm owner, in February 2008 on foot of a verbal agreement. The Complainant submits she agreed to ride out and school horses for the Respondent in return for accommodation, utilities and a weekly wage. For the first year of the arrangement, the Complainant says, she received her wages. However, the Respondent’s construction business went into liquidation the following year. According to the Complainant, the Parties entered into a revised verbal agreement whereby she would be permitted to remain living in the accommodation, rent free, subject to her paying the utility bills and looking after a small number of broodmares that were retained by the Respondent on the farm. The Complainant told the Court that, as the Respondent’s business began to recover over the years, she intermittently but infrequently received some payments. Those payments were made to her in cash up until 2017. Thereafter, she received a number of payments directly into her bank account. Weekly payments from the Respondent to the Complainant during 2018 and 2019 were all paid by cash. The Complainant told the Court that she suffered an accident in December 2018 which prevented her from riding horses for a number of months. On her return to work following her recovery, her workload consisted of looking after one horse only as another trainer, who had rented part of the Respondent’s yard, was riding out on the other horses. The Complainant submits that she spoke with the Respondent as she felt insecure in her position as a result of how matters were developing. Her evidence is that the Respondent informed her that any work she did in the future would be paid but that he was not in a position to indicate how much work there would be for her and that she would be required to sign a lease on the accommodation and commence paying rent of €750.00 per month. As a consequence of the Respondent’s inability to guarantee the Complainant ongoing work, her employment with the Respondent ceased on 23 August 2019. She submits that her average weekly earnings as of that date were €250.00 per week. The Complainant referred her claim for redundancy to the Workplace Relations Commission on 10 September 2019. SUBMISSIONS ON BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENT: Mr Harrington made two written submissions to the Court – the first is dated 4 February 2021 and the second, 24 March 2021. Much of the first submission relates to the correct spelling of the Respondent’s name and the form of various legal entities with which the Respondent appears to have an association. Mr Harrington then proceeds to allege that the Complainant is not entitled to a statutory redundancy payment as, in his view, she was not a “tax compliant worker with PRSI contributions from her employer”. He alleges the Complainant “has not demonstrated that she was in taxable employment of Mr Padraic Connolly, nor has she shown continuous PRSI contributions of 104 weeks of employment in order to qualify for statutory redundancy”. Mr Harrington further submits that the Complainant was paid ”from Congil Construction Ltd from 4 February 2008” to 22 June 2008”, “from Posa Properties Services Ltd from 8 May 2017 to 29 Dec (sic) 2017 and from “Bawnmore Stud from 24 June 2008 to 12 September 2008”. The balance of Mr Harrington’s first and second written submissions are devoted to a rambling criticism of the procedures followed by the Adjudication Officer and the Labour Court. In particular, Mr Harrington sought to take issue with the Court’s observation that its statutory function is to determine those matters that come before it on appeal from a decision of an Adjudication Officer on a de novo basis. DISCUSSION AND DECISION: Mr Harrington’s observations in relation to the correct spelling of the Respondent’s name and the correct legal form of various business entities he may have, or have had, an association with are of little or no interest to this Court as its jurisdiction to consider the within appeal arises from the decision of the Adjudication Officer referred to above wherein the Adjudication Officer upheld the Complainant’s claim under the Act against Mr Padraig Connolly. Likewise, Mr Harrington’s criticism of the procedures followed by the Adjudication Officer is not a matter of concern to this Court. Such issues are more properly the subject matter of an application for Judicial Review. That part of Mr Harrington’s submissions that relate to the substance of the appeal can be summarised as an assertion that the Complainant does not meet the statutory threshold of continuous insurable employment by the Respondent in order to succeed in her complaint under the Act against him. The Complainant’s direct evidence to the Court is that she contracted directly and in person with Mr Connolly to provide personal service to him for a period of 11 years. Her evidence is that she never entered into a contract with any of the companies or other business entities referred to by Mr Harrington. The Court found the Complainant to be a credible, coherent and honest witness. Mr Connolly – the Respondent in these proceedings – chose not to attend either before the Adjudication Officer or before this Court to give direct evidence. Had he done so, he may have been in a position to refute the Complainant’s evidence to the Court. Mr Harrington is not in a position to refute the Complainant’s direct evidence. His assertion that the Complainant was paid “from” various corporate entities from time to time, taken at its height, merely indicates the proximate source of the funds used to pay the Complainant’s wages. It does not prove that she was ever employed under a contract of service with any of those entities. Having carefully considered the Complainant’s direct evidence and Mr Harrington’s written and oral submissions on behalf of the Respondent, the Court finds the Complainant’s claim under the Act to be well-founded. The decision of the Adjudication Officer is, therefore, upheld. The Court finds that the Complainant was employed by the Respondent from 1 February 2008 to 23 August 2019 and that she is entitled to a statutory redundancy payment in respect of that period of employment subject to the Complainant establishing that she was in insurable employment throughout that period. In order to so establish her eligibility, the Complainant should make an application to the SCOPE section of the Department of Social Protection. Finally, the Court determines that as the Complainant’s average earnings immediately prior to her dismissal comprised a weekly cash payment of €250.00 and benefit-in-kind in the form of accommodation valued by the Respondent at €750.00 per month, her normal weekly remuneration for the purposes of calculating her redundancy entitlement is €423.00. The Court so determines.
NOTE Enquiries concerning this Determination should be addressed to Shane Lyons, Court Secretary. |
