The Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal by two former White Sands Hotel employees over reductions to their unfair dismissal awards under the Insolvency Payments Scheme. It held that the awards, totalling €90,000, did not fall within the statutory provision limiting certain payments to €600 for each week of loss.
The court said the Minister for Social Protection was required to pay the full amounts awarded by the Circuit Court from the scheme’s fund. It did not make a final order specifying the relief: Mr Justice Michael Peart said he would await further submissions from the parties on what relief should follow.
Jade Brady and Cathal O’Reilly were dismissed in February 2010 on grounds of purported redundancy from White Sands Hotel Limited in Portmarnock, County Dublin. The Employment Appeals Tribunal found they had been unfairly dismissed. On appeal concerning the amount of compensation, the Circuit Court awarded Brady €20,000 and O’Reilly €70,000 in October 2013.
The hotel company was insolvent, and a receiver applied for payments for the employees under the Protection of Employees (Employers’ Insolvency) Act 1984. The Minister accepted that the awards qualified for payment under the scheme but reduced the sums, applying a calculation based on each employee’s gross weekly wage and a maximum of 104 weeks at €600 per week.
The Circuit Court awards did not state how the sums had been calculated or identify a number of weeks of lost remuneration. The Court of Appeal found that dividing each award by the employee’s weekly wage did not establish that the award was calculated by reference to remuneration within the meaning of the statutory cap. The evidence before the Circuit Court included actual and prospective financial losses and other effects of the dismissals.
Mr Justice Peart said the Minister’s statutory role was to determine what amount was due in respect of a qualifying debt. Once that amount was determined, the Act required its payment, subject to the cap where it applied. He concluded that the two awards did not come within that cap and were payable in full under the scheme.
The appeal was from a 2016 High Court decision refusing judicial review of the Minister’s determination. Keith Ramsey, a third applicant in the High Court, did not appeal and was not a party to the Court of Appeal proceedings. The Court of Appeal’s judgment resolved the appeal but left the specific relief to be settled after further submissions.