Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Leigh  Fogarty

Parnells Gaa Club, Parnells Gaa Club Ltd

Representatives

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991

CA-00059390-001

13/10/2023

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Regulation 15 of the  European Communities (Organisation of Working Time) (Mobile Staff in Civil Aviation) Regulations 2006 - S.I. No. 507 of 2006

CA-00059390-002

13/10/2023

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

CA-00059390-003

13/10/2023

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

CA-00059390-004

13/10/2023

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

CA-00059390-005

13/10/2023

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

CA-00059390-006

13/10/2023

The complainant says he was laid off on 13 March 2020. When he was not contacted by the respondent he sent them an RP9 form in May 2022, giving notice he intended to claim redundancy but received no reply. The respondent did not attend the hearing.

The complainant started working for the respondent on 18 May 2012. He submits he was laid off by the respondent on 13 March 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. He heard nothing further from them. In May 2022 he sent the respondent an RP9 redundancy form. In these circumstances he says he is entitled to a redundancy payment.

He also he is owed one week’s pay, outstanding holiday pay and pay for public holidays.

The respondent did not attend the hearing.

The complainant was laid off on 13 March 2020 and he submitted an RP9 form to the respondent in May 2022, giving notice of his intention to claim a Redundancy Lump Sum Payment. He received no response from the respondent. In the absence of a response he referred this claim to the WRC on 13 October 2023.

Section 24 of the Redundancy Payment Acts provides for a time limit on claims for a redundancy payment as follows:

“(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, an employee shall not be entitled to a lump sum unless before the end of the period of 52 weeks beginning on the date of dismissal or the date of termination of employment . . . (b) the employee has made a claim for the payment by notice in writing given to the employer.

(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”.

In this case the referral to the WRC was made more than 52 weeks after he submitted the RP9 form to the respondent. In direct evidence at the hearing the complainant gave no reasonable cause for the delay in submitting this claim. Accordingly, I find I do not have jurisdiction to decide the claim under the Redundancy Payment Act 1967 as the claim is out of time.

The other complaints relate to what the complainant says are entitlements outstanding from when he was laid off in March 2020. These complaints were not referred to the WRC until 13 October 2023. The Workplace Relations Act states that all complaints should be referred within six months, and allows that this period can be extended to twelve months. In this case the complaints were made more than three years after the complainant was laid off and more than one year after he submitted an RP9 form, which ended his employment. Therefore, all of the complainants are outside the time limits.

CA-00059390-001, 002, 003 and 004: for the reasons given above, in accordance with section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act I find these complaints are out of time and I have no jurisdiction to investigate them.

CA-00059390-005 and 006: for the reasons given above, in accordance with section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Acts I find this complaint is out of time and I have no jurisdiction to investigate it.

Out of time