Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised

A Former Director of Wellbeing

A tech company

Representatives

Self-represented 

Did not attend

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00079442-001

12/01/2026

The Complainant commenced her employment with the Respondent on 3 March 2025. Her employment terminated on 21 January 2026.

On 12 January 2026 the Complainant referred her complaint to the Director General of the WRC pursuant to the Payment of Wages Act, 1991.

Preliminary matter – time limit

At the adjudication hearing, the Complainant made an application to extend the applicable time limits.

In her evidence, the Complainant described a medical condition from which she suffers, which causes, amongst others, extreme fatigue. She gave evidence that she requires ongoing intensive medication and must travel abroad every 12 weeks to receive treatment. However, as a result of the Respondent’s failure to pay her wages, she was unable to attend these treatments, leading to a deterioration in her condition, particularly in terms of increased exhaustion.

The Complainant further stated that she has a child with a disability. The financial consequences of the non-payment of wages had a detrimental knock-on effect on her child’s required treatment and care. This was exacerbated by the necessity to cancel the child’s private health insurance.

The Complainant also detailed the marital difficulties she experienced as a result of the financial strain arising from the non-payment of her wages, including the inability to meet mortgage repayments and the loss of her car. She stated that, following a particularly difficult period, her husband made the decision to leave the relationship at that time.

Summary of the Complainant’s evidence on the substantive matter

The Complainant said that the Respondent’s CEO, whom she knew for some 10 to 15 years, asked her to leave her full-time pensionable employment to take up a role within his organisation.

The Complainant said that she was enthusiastic about the opportunity, as the position offered the prospect of developing significant support services for children with mental health difficulties. The Complainant further noted that she has a background in special education and approximately 20 years’ experience in this field.

The Complainant started her employment with the Respondent on 3 March 2025. She worked 8 to 9 hours a day and the agreed salary was €150,000 gross per year. From the outset there were difficulties with the salary payments.

In late March / early April 2025, the Respondent told her that a named person from the accounts department was away thus delaying the payment of wages.

In April 2025, the CEO recruited an additional employee to join the team and assured the Complainant that her outstanding wages would be paid shortly, stating that he would not be in a position to hire new staff otherwise. He further indicated that delays in payment were due to his bank accounts being blocked or “flagged” as a result of the amount of incoming investor funds. He provided explanations relating to alleged issues with international bank transfers, which the Complainant asserts were untrue.

The Complainant and the second employee were very worried about money, but the CEO assured her that he was working hard to get them paid.

In May 2025, the CEO hired a tech team from the UK and hosted them for a week of work in the Respondent’s location. The Complainant talked them through all of her designs, and they were to be paid to create the features of the app. They worked together for a week. The Complainant believed that the three team members, similarly to her four work colleagues, were not paid their monies.

The Complainant said that in June 2025, the CEO rented a huge luxury office in a prominent location. The CEO told the Complainant that the office rent was covered for 36 months in advance by an investor. By that time, she had been five months waiting for wages. She lost her car as she did not have enough money to insure it and keep it on the road.

The Complainant stated that the CEO repeatedly urged staff, on more than one occasion, to continue to wait, assuring them that their wages would be paid in full. She said that he consistently asked employees to remain patient, giving repeated assurances that payment was “absolutely guaranteed” within the week.

The Complainant said that the CEO then started to refer to her as 'working for herself' as a consultant, this was news to her. They originally agreed that she was Head of / Director of Wellbeing Development Globally at a salary of €150,000 gross annually and the CEO was very happy with her work over the many months.

The Complainant said that she conducted some separate work as a favour to the CEO, some was to be paid for, for some she was to receive shares in lieu of money. This never materialised either. The CEO told the Complainant that she needed to invoice him and sort her own taxes. The Complainant did so as she was desperate to get paid. To date she has not received the money outlined in the invoice.

The Complainant said that there were hundreds of emails and texts to discuss the non-payment in detail. The Complainant exhibited some at the hearing.

The Complainant’s uncontested sworn evidence was that she commenced her employment with the Respondent on 3 March 2025 on an agreed salary of €150,000 gross per year. The Complainant’s evidence was that the following payments were made to her: €2,000 on 6 November 2025; €2,000 on 6 December 2025; €500 on 16 December 2025; €2,000 on 19 January 2026; and €5,000 on 28 January 2026. A total of €11,500.

The Complainant submitted that she could not understand the CEO’s actions. She explained that her mortgage had fallen into severe arrears, while her electricity bills and loan repayments were also significantly overdue, causing considerable hardship for her family. She further stated that she was unable to heat her home during freezing weather and was facing the risk of repossession.

Summary of direct evidence of the Complainant’s witness, Senior Software Engineer

The witness said that he started working for the Respondent in May 2019. He was working on and off but has never been paid all his salary.

There was no attendance by, or on behalf of, the Respondent at the hearing. There has been no communication from the Respondent indicating any difficulties with attending the hearing or requesting a postponement.

Preliminary matter – time limits

At the adjudication hearing, the Complainant made an application to extend the applicable time limits.

The time limit for submitting a complaint under the Payment of Wages Act is set out at section 41(6) of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015:

(6) Subject to subsection (8), an adjudication officer shall not entertain a complaint referred to him or her under this section if it has been presented to the Director General after the expiration of the period of 6 months beginning on the date of the contravention to which the complaint relates.

Section 41(8) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 provides that an extension may be granted by an Adjudication Officer up to a maximum time limit of 12 months where, in the opinion of the Adjudication Officer, the Complainant has demonstrated reasonable cause for the delay in accordance with the provisions:

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 6 months after such expiration), as the case may be, if he or she is satisfied that the failure to present the complaint or refer the dispute within that period was due to reasonable cause.

The implications of the above were explained to the Complainant at the adjudication hearing. 

I have jurisdiction to investigate any complaint pursuant to the Payment of Wages Act,1991 for a period of six months from the date of the referral of complaint. This complaint was presented to the Director General of the WRC on 12 January 2026 and therefore the cognisable period that may be investigated is from 13 July 2025 to 12 January 2026.

It is for the Complainant to establish that there is reasonable cause for the delay in presenting a claim under the Act to the Director General of the WRC. The general principles which apply are that something must be advanced which will both explain and excuse the delay. 

The established test for deciding if an extension of time should be granted for ‘reasonable cause’ is set out in the Labour Court determination in the case of Cementation Skanska (Formerly Kvaerner Cementation) Limited v Carroll DWT0338 and is summarised in Salesforce.com v Alli Leech EDA1615 wherein the Labour Court stated:

‘The established test for deciding if an extension should be granted for reasonable cause shown is that formulated by this Court in Labour Court Determination DWT0338Cementation Skanska (Formerly Kvaerner Cementation) v Carroll. Here the test was set out in the following terms: -

“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.”

In that case, and in subsequent cases in which this question arose, the Court adopted an approach analogous to that taken by the Superior Courts in considering whether time should enlarged for ‘good reason’ in judicial review proceedings pursuant to Order 84, Rule 21 of the Rules of the Superior Courts 1986. That approach was held to be correct by the High Court in Minister for Finance v CPSU & Ors [2007] 18 ELR 36.

The test formulated in Cementation Skanska (Formerly Kvaerner Cementation) v Carroll draws heavily on the decision of the High Court in Donal O’Donnell and Catherine O’Donnell v Dun Laoghaire Corporation [1991] ILRM 30. Here Costello J. (as he then was) stated as follows:

“The phrase ‘good reasons’ is one of wide import which it would be futile to attempt to define precisely. However, in considering whether or not there are good reasons for extending the time I think it is clear that the test must be an objective one and the court should not extend the time merely because an aggrieved plaintiff believed that he or she was justified in delaying the institution of proceedings. What the plaintiff has to show (and I think the onus under O. 84 r. 21 is on the plaintiff) is that there are reasons which both explain the delay and afford a justifiable excuse for the delay.”

In Cementation Skanska, the Court further held that:

‘The length of the delay should be taken into account. A short delay may require only a slight explanation whereas a long delay may require more cogent reasons.’

The Complainant applied for the time limits to be extended on the basis that the financial, medical, and family circumstances she found herself in due to the non-payment of her wages prevented her from attending to the matter for a considerable period. The Complainant gave detailed account of the difficulties she encountered and their impact on her. I found the Complainant to be a credible witness, and I accept her evidence in this regard.

Having carefully considered the matter, I find that a valid explanation to properly account for the delay which explains the referral of the Complainant’s claim to the WRC outside the statutory time limit of six month has been provided.

In all the circumstances, I am of the view that a justifiable basis upon which an extension of time could be granted has been put forward in this case. Consequently, the cognisable period that may be investigated is from 13 January 2025 to 12 January 2026.

Substantive matter

The applicable law

Section 1 of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 (“Act”) provides in part as follows:

“wages”, in relation to an employee, means any sums payable to the employee by the employer in connection with his employment, including—

(a) any fee, bonus or commission, or any holiday, sick or maternity pay, or any other emolument, referable to his employment, whether payable under his contract of employment or otherwise, or

Section 5 of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 provides in part as follows:

(1) 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.

(6) Where—

(a) the total amount of any wages that are paid on any occasion by an employer to an employee is less than the total amount of wages that is properly payable by him to the employee on that occasion (after making any deductions therefrom that fall to be made and are in accordance with this Act), or

(b) none of the wages that are properly payable to an employee by an employer on any occasion (after making any such deductions as aforesaid) are paid to the employee,

then, except in so far as the deficiency or non-payment is attributable to an error of computation, the amount of the deficiency or non-payment shall be treated as a deduction made by the employer from the wages of the employee on the occasion.

The Act provides that where the total amount of wages properly payable to an employee is not paid, any deficiency is regarded as a deduction. Consequently, to ground a claim under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 the Adjudication Officer needs in the first instance to ascertain what wages are properly payable.

In Sullivan v Department of Education PW 2/1997 (reported at [1998] E.L.R. 217), the Employment Appeals Tribunal took the word “payable” to mean “properly payable”, consequently it was not simply a matter of what may have been paid from the outset but all sums to which an employee is properly entitled.

The importance of establishing what remuneration was “properly payable” was emphasised by Finnegan P. in Dunnes Stores (Cornelscourt) Ltd v Lacey [2007] 1 I.R. 478.

In Marek Balans v Tesco Ireland Limited [2020] IEHC 55 MacGrath J held that the concept of wages “properly payable” must be “central to the Court’s analysis”. The Court considered Section 5 of the Act as follows:

‘36. The provisions of s.5(6) of the Act of 1991 were considered by Finnegan P. in Dunnes Stores (Cornelscourt) Limited v Lacey [2007] 1 I.R. 478. A Rights Commissioner had found in favour of the respondents holding that the cessation of service pay amounted to an unlawful deduction, which was upheld by the Employment Appeals Tribunal. It was argued that the Employment Appeals Tribunal should address the question of remuneration properly payable to an employee before considering the question of a deduction or whether a deduction was unlawful. Finnegan P. concluded at p.482:

“I am satisfied upon careful perusal of the documents relied upon by the respondents that the same cannot represent the agreement or an acknowledgement of the agreement contended for but rather contain a clear denial of the existence of any such agreement. No other evidence of an agreement was proffered. In these circumstances I am satisfied that the Employment Appeals Tribunal erred in law in failing to address the question of the remuneration properly payable to the respondents, such a determination being essential to the making by it of a determination. Insofar as a finding is implicit in the determination of the Employment Appeals Tribunal that the appellant agreed to pay to the respondents service pay and a long service increment, then such finding was made without evidence and indeed in the face of the evidence: I am satisfied that there has been no deduction of pay from the respondents within the terms of the Act of 1991 but rather their remuneration has been unilaterally increased by the appellant making a payment which recognises their long service in excess of that which was payable prior to the 18th September, 2002. In either case there has been an error or law. Accordingly I allow the appeal.”

The High Court made it clear that, when considering a complaint under the Act, the Labour Court (and, by extension, an Adjudication Officer) must first establish that wages were properly payable to the employee before considering whether a deduction had been made. If it is established that a deduction within the meaning of the Act had been made, the Adjudication Officer would then consider whether that deduction was lawful.  

The Complainant’s uncontested sworn evidence was that she commenced her employment with the Respondent on 3 March 2025 on an agreed salary of €150,000 gross per year. The Complainant’s evidence was that the following payments were made to her: €2,000 on 6 November 2025; €2,000 on 6 December 2025; €500 on 16 December 2025; €2,000 on 19 January 2026; and €5,000 on 28 January 2026. A total of €11,500.

The Complainant asserted that the Respondent owed her some €137,500 minus €11,500 already paid to her. The Complainant exhibited copies of what appears to be endless pleading with the Respondent to pay her her salary and the Respondent reverting with a variety of excuses and promises. I note that the amount of €137,000 is mentioned in this exchange.

It is regrettable that the Respondent chose not to attend the adjudication hearing.

On the basis of uncontested evidence of the Complainant, I find that the Complainant is owed her salary for 11 months at €12,500 gross per month. I note that payments totalling some €11,500 were made to the Complainant. I am satisfied the monies owing are properly payable to the Complainant. 

I declare this complaint to be well founded. I direct the Respondent to pay the Complainant the sum of €126,000 gross.

Non-payment of wages