DWT2424

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00048584 (CA-00059589-001)

BACKGROUND:

The Worker appealed the Decision of the Adjudication Officer to the Labour Court on 24 April 2024 in accordance with section 28(1) of the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997. A Labour Court hearing took place on 2 August 2024. The following is the Decision of the Court:

DECISION:

This matter comes before the Court as an appeal of a decision by an Adjudication Officer in a complaint made by Declan Gargan (the Claimant) against his former employer Shapoorji Pallonji Europe Limited Ltd (the Respondent) under the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997 (the Act).

The Adjudication Officer found that the complaint was not well founded.

The case

A liquidator responsible for the Respondent company did not attend the hearing of the Court.

The Claimant commenced employment with the Respondent in June 2022. The employment terminated in October 2023. He contends that the Respondent failed to make a payment to him as required by the Ac t in respect of annual leave which had accrued to him and had not been granted as of the date or termination of the employment.

The documentation provided to the Court by the Claimant makes clear that a payment of €2,367 was made to him in respect of annual leave at the cessation of his employment.

Relevant law

The Act at Section 19 in relevant part provides as follows:

19.—(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.

The Act at Section 23 makes provision in relevant part makes provision as follows:

23. (a) Where—

(i) an employee ceases to be employed, and

(ii) the whole or any portion of the annual leave in respect of the relevant period remains to be granted to the employee,

the employee shall, as compensation for the loss of that annual leave, be paid by his or her employer an amount equal to the pay, calculated at the normal weekly rate or, as the case may be, at a rate proportionate to the normal weekly rate, that he or she would have received had he or she been granted that annual leave.

Summary submission of the Claimant

The Claimant submitted that a breach of the Act has occurred in that he had not received his entitlement to compensation in respect of annual leave which had not been granted to him on cessation of his employment. He submitted that he had, by the date of cessation of his employment, accrued an entitlement to 11.2 days annual leave under the statute in the leave year commencing 1st April 2023. He submitted that he had received a payment from the employer in respect of his entitlement to annual leave on cessation of his employment in the amount of €2,397.00.

Discussion

The Court clarified at the hearing that the daily rate of pay of the Claimant during his employment was €240.00 per day. The Claimant accepted that his entitlement to compensation in respect of leave which had not been granted to him on cessation of his employment amounted to 11.2 days annual leave at the daily rate of €240.00. This amounts to total of €2,688.00. The difference between the amount paid to him in compensation in respect of leave which had not been granted to him on cessation of his employment and that which he was entitled to receive was therefore €291.

Determination

The Court determines that the Respondent was in breach of the Act at Section 23 and the complaint is well founded. The Court orders the Respondent to pay the sum of €500 in compensation to the Claimant, being the amount which the Court considers just and equitable having regard to all of the circumstances. 

The decision of the Adjudication Officer is set aside.

The Court so decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Kevin Foley
CC	______________________
13 August 2024	Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Decision should be addressed to Ceola Cronin, Court Secretary.