Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Deirdre  Colohan

Josephine Flood, Ciara Bridal

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00048377-001

28/01/2022

The complainant worked for the respondent from October 12th, 1996, until January 13th 2022. There was a break in her service for eight months in 2007.

The complainant gave evidence on oath.

The respondent closed its business in March 2020 as a result of the public health pandemic, but when it re-opened in June she did not return to employment.

This continued over the following months and her enquiries to her employer about a return to work did not yield any positive change.

In July 2021 after sixteen months, she queried the position again and on July 16th was told that there were no funds to pay her redundancy, although her employer said that it would ‘look into’ the possibility of a payment from the Social Insurance fund. However, she heard nothing further about this.

Eventually, in January 2022, her employment terminated, and she seeks a redundancy payment.

The respondent did not attend the hearing. No explanation was received for the failure to do so.

However, in correspondence submitted to the WRC on February 9th, 2022, the respondent stated the following.

 To whom it may concern,

 I would like to refer to the complaint reference number CA-00048377. In answer to the letter received regarding the redundancy claim for Mrs Deirdre Colohan; our business was struggling prior to covid and on 23 March 2020 COVID meant that our business was forced to close for a substantial amount of time. This left us with an inability to pay anything. As a result of this our business was under too much strain and could not continue to trade as there were no available funds. Our landlord was very gracious at this time and agreed to wave our outstanding rent. If there are any other queries, please let me know and I will respond asap.

 Josephine Flood

I find that the complainant was made redundant in January and is entitled to a statutory redundancy payment based on her service with the respondent from October 12th, 1996, until January 13th, 2022, and noting her break in service of eight months in 2077.

I take into account the sworn evidence of the complainant and the communication by the owner of the respondent business referred to above which confirm the basis for the complaint.

Complaint CA-00048347-001 is well founded.

I find that the complainant was made redundant in January 2022 and is entitled to a statutory redundancy payment based on her service with the respondent from October 12th, 1996, until January 13th, 2022.

From this period there should be a deduction of eight months to take account of a break in service in 2007.

Redundancy