Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Fernando  Oliveira

Ryanair Dac

Representatives

Roland Rowan BL instructed by Killian O Reilly Fieldfisher

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-00078053-001

27/11/2025

The Complainant was employed as cabin crew, initially through an agency arrangement from 26 August 2022 and thereafter directly by the Respondent from on or about 1 January 2023, until his resignation by letter dated 14 May 2025, with his final working day on 11 June 2025.

He stated that he is owed a net sum in the region of €2,300 to €2,360 in respect of his employment with the Respondent in respect of unpaid wages, reimbursement of what he asserts was an unlawful deduction, correction of an annual leave clawback and correction of a sick pay deduction. The Respondent disputes that the Complainant is owed any money and stated that he was in fact overpaid.

The Complainant's case, as set out in his complaint form, is that he is owed a net sum in the region of €2,300 to €2,360, comprising: unpaid wages for five days worked in May 2025; reimbursement of what he stated is an unlawful deduction of €1,058.44 recorded on his June payslip; correction of an annual leave clawback which he says should have been charged at €30.84 rather than €71.36 per day; and correction of a sick pay deduction which he says should have been limited to one day rather than six, by reference to the Sick Leave Act 2022. He denies owing the Respondent the €718.07 overpayment sought of him and asserted that the Respondent's payroll records are fundamentally flawed.

At the hearing, the Complainant did not depart from or add to the account given in his complaint form. He gave no additional oral evidence, called no witness, and did not engage with the specific explanations advanced in the Respondent's correspondence of 7 July 2025, 17 December 2025, and 26 January 2026. When it was put to him at hearing that the figures and legal propositions in his submissions did not correspond to the terms of his own contract or to the reconciliations furnished by the Respondent, he did not engage with the substance of what was put to him.

On repeated occasions, when challenged on specific points — including the basis for the annual leave rate, the statutory sick pay calculation, and his claim to a further month's salary in July 2025 —he did not, at any point, offer a plausible explanation of these figures in his own terms, nor did he identify any error in the Respondent's reconciliations.

The Respondent's position, supported by payslips for May, June and July 2025 and by three separate written breakdowns emailed to the Complainant over a seven-month period, is that no unlawful deduction was made and that the Complainant was in fact overpaid.

In relation to May 2025, the Respondent's evidence was that the Complainant's basic pay and allowances for that month were paid in full on 28 May 2025, and that a payment of €411.05 recorded as sick pay was made to him in error, as he was, at that time, subject to a disciplinary investigation which, under the terms of the discretionary company sick pay scheme, excluded him from that benefit; this was recouped, one month in arrears, from his June pay. The Respondent's evidence is that he separately received his statutory entitlement of five days' sick pay, amounting to €335.51, recorded as "Pay Adjustment" on his 28 April 2025 payslip, and accordingly was not further short-changed under the Sick Leave Act 2022.

In relation to the annual leave deduction, the Respondent's evidence is that the Complainant's accrued entitlement for the year to his last working day was 8.3 days, against which he had already taken 15 days, resulting in an overtaken balance of 6.7 days. The Respondent's evidence, which the Complainant did not challenge, is that the rate applied to this clawback reflects that an employee on annual leave continues to receive both fixed pay and a separate annual leave allowance concurrently, such that the correct clawback rate necessarily exceeds the basic daily rate the Complainant contended for.

In relation to the sum of €1,058.44 which the Complainant asserted was an illegal deduction, the Respondent's evidence was that this figure was not a deduction at all but the calculated net overpayment arising from the reconciliation of his final pay, as recorded under the "Claim" heading on his June 2025 payslip, which was offset in part against a further payment on 28 July 2025, leaving a residual balance of €718.07 which remains outstanding and unpaid by the Complainant.

The Respondent relied on the terms of the Complainant's contract of employment, which was opened in evidence, including the clause permitting deduction from final pay of sums owed by an employee to the company, the clause governing adjustment of annual leave on termination by reference to the normal rate of pay, and the terms of the discretionary sick pay scheme excluding entitlement during a live disciplinary process. The Respondent stated that the Complainant was given written notice of each of these deductions, in each case before or contemporaneously with the deduction being made, by way of the payslips and the correspondence referred to above.

Section 5(1) of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 provides:

"An employer shall not make a deduction from the wages of an employee (or receive any payment from an employee) unless— (a) the deduction (or payment) is required or authorised to be made by virtue of any statute or any instrument made under statute, (b) the deduction (or payment) is required or authorised to be made by virtue of a term of the employee's contract of employment included in the contract before, and in force at the time of, the deduction or payment, or (c) in the case of a deduction, the employee has given his prior consent in writing to it."

The approach to be taken when adjudicating on a claim under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 is set out in Marek Balans v Tesco Ireland Limited [2020] IEHC 55, approving Dunnes Stores (Cornelscourt) Limited v Lacey [2007] 1 IR 478. A decision-maker must first determine what wages were properly payable under the contract of employment before determining whether any shortfall amounts to a deduction within the meaning of section 5.

The Complainant's stated that he is owed a net sum in the region of €2,300 to €2,360, comprising unpaid wages for five days worked in May 2025, reimbursement of a sum of €1,058.44 which he characterises as an illegal deduction, correction of an annual leave clawback which he says was charged at an incorrect rate, and correction of a sick pay deduction which he says exceeded his statutory entitlement under the Sick Leave Act 2022. He denies owing the Respondent the €718.07 overpayment sought of him.

The Respondent's evidence, given by way of three separate written explanations issued over a seven-month period and supported by payslips for May, June and July 2025, is that no deduction within the meaning of the Act was made. In relation to the sick pay recoupment, the Respondent's evidence is that the Complainant was, at the material time, subject to a disciplinary investigation which excluded him from the discretionary company sick pay scheme, and that he had separately already received his statutory entitlement of five days under the Sick Leave Act 2022, recorded on his 28 April 2025 payslip. In relation to the annual leave clawback, the Respondent's evidence is that the Complainant had taken 15 days against an accrued entitlement of 8.3 days, and that the rate applied to the resulting 6.7-day overtake reflects that an employee on annual leave receives both fixed pay and a separate annual leave allowance concurrently, such that the clawback rate necessarily exceeds the basic daily rate the Complainant contends for. In relation to the sum of €1,058.44, the Respondent's evidence is that this was not a deduction but an accounting entry arising from the reconciliation of the Complainant's final pay, which was subsequently and correctly offset against a later sector pay payment, leaving a residual balance of €718.07 outstanding.

I have considered the payslips, the contract of employment, and each of the Respondent's three explanations. I am satisfied that each sum the Complainant identifies as unlawfully deducted or withheld is accounted for by reference to an identifiable term of his contract, of which he had prior notice, and that the arithmetic underlying each explanation is internally consistent and reconciles across the payslips for May, June and July 2025. I accept the Respondent's evidence on each of these points.

Against this, the Complainant did not give evidence addressing the Respondent's explanation of the annual leave rate, did not explain why he considered himself entitled to a further month's salary in July notwithstanding that his employment had already ended on 11 June 2025, and did not account for the fact that the total sum he claims as owed changed between his original complaint form and his subsequent correspondence, notwithstanding that the underlying facts relied upon were unchanged. At hearing, when challenged on each of these specific points, the Complainant did not offer an explanation in his own terms and I formed the view that his submission had been prepared by AI.

A complainant is of course entitled to prepare his case with whatever assistance he chooses. He is not, however, relieved of the burden of establishing that a deduction was made from wages properly payable to him. Where, as here, a respondent has furnished three separate, arithmetically reconciled and exhaustively detailed explanations over a period of seven months, each addressing the same points in ever increasing painstaking detail, a complainant seeking to displace that evidence must engage with it. It is both extraordinary and rare, in my experience, for a respondent to engage with a complainant's objections in the degree of sustained, itemised detail, that they did in this case and the Complainant did not engage with it in turn, at hearing or at any stage prior to it, preferring, in my view, to rely instead what AI erroneously told him.

Considering the foregoing, I find that the Complainant has not established that any deduction was made from wages properly payable to him otherwise than in accordance with section 5 of the Act and that his complaint is therefore not well founded. Indeed, I find that the documentary evidence supports the Respondent's position that the Complainant was overpaid and that a balance remains outstanding.

I find that that the complaint is not well founded for the reasons set out above.