Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Patricia Lucia Fernández Rodríguez

Iniscare Ltd Home Care Services

Representatives

Self-represented

Andrea Tancred, IBEC

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00069750-001

05/03/2025

The respondent provides home care services to people in their homes.  The complainant is a Bolivian national and is a qualified pharmacist.  She joined the respondent as a home care worker on January 4th 2023 on a part-time basis, in accordance with her student visa.  In June 2024, she was granted a work permit and she was issued with a contract to work for 40 hours per week.  She was paid €15.00 per hour.  The Saturday hourly rate was €17.00 and the Sunday rate was €18.00.

On August 16th 2024, the complainant sent a letter of resignation to the respondent’s managers in which she gave one month’s notice of her intention to leave her job.  In her letter, she explained that she had suffered an injury and hurt her back when she was working with a client.  She was out sick from August 20th 2024 and her employment ended on September 12th.  She submitted this complaint to the WRC on March 5th 2025.  The complainant claims that, in breach of s.15 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 (“the Act”), she worked in excess of the hours stipulated in her contract of employment.  She claims also that, in contravention of s.11 of the Act, she did not always get a break of 11 hours between her daily shifts.

As a preliminary issue, Ms Tancred submitted that, in accordance with s.41(6) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015, the cognizable period for which I have jurisdiction to consider a complaint is the six months from September 6th 2024 until March 5th 2025.  The complainant was not at work from August 20th 2024 and it is the respondent’s position that no breaches of the Act occurred during the cognizable period.

Section 41(8) permits an extension of the time limit to 12 months:

“An adjudication officer may entertain a complaint or dispute to which this section applies presented or referred to the Director General after the expiration of the period referred to in subsection (6) or (7) (but not later than six months after such expiration) as the case may be, if he or she is satisfied that the failure to present the case or refer the dispute within that period was due to reasonable cause.”

It is clear from this section that, “for reasonable cause,” the time limit for submitting a complaint may be extended from six months to 12 months. 

The complainant is seeking an extension of the time limit, and, in support of this application, she read a statement in which she said that, when she resigned, she was suffering from a lower back problem arising from an injury at work.  She said that she was feeling depressed and anxious and, because she wasn’t able to work, she was in financial difficulties.  To legally remain in Ireland, she had to return to being a student and she used the money she had available to her to pay for a master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Business and Technology.  She completed the master’s in September 2025, with the highest marks in her class.

It is the complainant’s case therefore, that the delay submitting her complaint to the WRC was because of her back injury and her emotional response to being out of work with no income.

The complainant is a lay litigant and, although she is reasonably fluent in English, she is also a foreign national and she is unfamiliar with the law in Ireland.  She said that used information she found on the internet to write her letter of resignation, which was comprehensive and detailed.  As she did this research when she resigned in August 2024, I find it difficult to understand why she didn’t also research how to make a complaint to the WRC.

The complainant said that, because she no longer had a work permit after she resigned, she was focussed on legalising her status in Ireland and she devoted her attention to applying for a place in Griffith College to do the master’s degree.

In her submission, Ms Tancred referred to the Labour Court case of Cementation Skanska (formerly Kvaerner Cementation) v Carroll[1]in which the test for reasonable cause for extending the time limit to 12 months was set out:

“It is the Court’s view that in considering if reasonable cause exists, it is for the claimant to show that there are reasons which both explain the delay and afford an excuse for the delay.  The explanation must be reasonable, that is to say, it must make sense, be agreeable to reason and not be irrational or absurd.  In the context in which the expression reasonable cause appears in the statute it suggests an objective standard, but it must be applied to the facts and circumstances known to the claimant at the material time.  The claimant’s failure to present the claim within the six-month time limit must have been due to the reasonable cause relied upon.  Hence there must be a causal link between the circumstances cited and the delay and the claimant should satisfy the Court, as a matter of probability, that had those circumstances not been present, he would have initiated the claim in time.”

It is clear therefore, that, for an explanation of “reasonable cause” to succeed,

§    The complainant must explain the delay and afford an excuse for the delay;

§    The explanation must be reasonable;

§    There must be an objective standard applied to the circumstances of the case;

§    There must be a causal link between the circumstances and the delay;

§    The complainant must show that, if the circumstances were not present, she would have submitted the claim.

The complainant’s case that she was unwell after she resigned, is a reasonable explanation for not submitting a complaint during the first few weeks of her resignation, but it does not explain why she delayed for six months.  Shortly after she left her job with the respondent, she was able to apply for a student visa and she commenced studying for a master’s degree.  Compared to these challenges, the submission of a complaint to the WRC would have taken a small effort.

Based on her evidence at the hearing, it is my view that it would have been possible for the complainant to submit a complaint to the WRC within six months of the termination of her employment.  While I accept that she was unwell and emotionally fragile, this is not a reasonable explanation for the delay.  Many employees faced with the prospect of having to seek redress are very stressed out having left their jobs or having been dismissed, but they fill in the form on time. 

The complainant was absent from work from August 20th 2024, and she submitted this complaint to the WRC on March 5th 2025.  There can have been no breaches of the Organisation of Working Time Act between August 20th and September 6th 2024, which is the first day of the six-month period that ended on March 5th 2025.

I have decided not to grant an extension of the time limit for submitting this complaint and, for this reason, I have no jurisdiction to adjudicate further.

Expiration of the time limit at s.41(6) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015