Bus driver awarded €1,803.42 in leave and public-holiday pay

Andrew McAuliffe, a bus driver at Dublin Airport’s Quick Park car park, was awarded €1,803.42 in annual-leave and public-holiday pay by the Workplace Relations Commission, in a decision dated 10 February 2023. The WRC directed Last Bus Limited to pay for 10.75 days of untaken annual leave and public holidays that fell during the first 13 weeks of lay-off. McAuliffe had been laid off in October 2020 after passenger numbers fell during the pandemic. The car park later ceased trading, and Last Bus offered him alternative driving work on a Dublin Airport route. He said the job involved a different employer and substantially different terms; the company said it was suitable work with the same employer. The adjudicator found the alternative job suitable and the proposed changes insignificant, and said it was unreasonable for McAuliffe to refuse it. His redundancy-pay complaint was not well founded because he was not dismissed and had not returned to work after lay-off. His claim for annual-leave pay during lay-off from 19 October 2020 was also not well founded; the award covered other leave and public-holiday entitlements.