THE Labour Court has reduced a holiday pay award made to a former employee of the scandal hit Limerick charity Bóthar by 77 per cent.
The Court set aside an award of €6,115 made by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) to former administrative employee, Olivia Cumiskey.
The WRC ruled that the €6,115 award represented the 53 days annual leave Ms Cumiskey was due on her redundancy last May in compensation for Bóthar’s breach of the Organisation of Working Time Act.
However, Labour Court chairman Kevin Foley set the WRC Adjudicator’s award aside following the appeal by Bóthar against the ruling.
Instead, he awarded Ms Cumiskey eight days holiday pay – on a pro-rata calculation of €923 along with an additional €500 – a total of €1,423.
Mr Foley found that Bóthar was in breach of the Organisation of Working Time Act in that it failed to pay Ms Cumiskey an amount equal to the pay she would have received had she availed of 8 days’ annual leave.
He said that Ms Cumiskey’s holiday pay entitlement on the cessation of her role with Bóthar was limited to her entitlements from April 2020 to May 2021.
Bóthar stated that it paid Ms Cumiskey 11 days pay in respect of her annual leave entitlement for 2021 upon termination of her employment but refused to pay her for 39 days allegedly accrued from previous years and 14 days allegedly accrued through Bóthar’s ‘tokens’ system.
Bóthar submitted that the claim for annual leave carried over from previous years was almost entirely statute barred and could only apply if approved by the Chief Executive or Deputy Chief Executive.
The charity argued that carry over of leave was a potential benefit rather than an entitlement and that Mr Cumiskey had not particularised any occasion when carry over of annual leave was approved.
Ms Cumiskey submitted that employees were permitted to carry over annual leave into the next calendar year and this practice was recognised for twenty years.
Bóthar has ceased all its fundraising activities after alleged mis-appropriation of funds by its former chief executive David Moloney came to light.
In the High Court last April, Mr Moloney admitted to “very significant wrongdoing” and in light of that admission, the amount alleged to have been mis-appropriated from Bóthar increased from €465,000 to €770,000.
