The Workplace Relations Commission found Theresa Mc Guinness was unfairly dismissed and ordered HPL Engineering Services Ltd to pay her €39,000 compensation. The decision, dated 6 September 2023, also found her written-terms and wage complaints well founded, awarding €770 and €1,031 respectively.
Mc Guinness worked as an office manager and bookkeeper from 19 October 2021 until her contract ended on 2 December 2022. She said intolerable working conditions led her to resign, that she was not given written terms and that she lost half her contractual pay for four weeks. HPL denied the complaints; its director said she had received full pay or that any shortfall was later made up.
The adjudicator accepted her evidence of bullying and found fundamental contract terms had been breached through an unsafe workplace and the loss of a substantial part of her wages. He said she had made reasonable efforts to find new work and found she did not contribute to her dismissal. He estimated the wage award as her net loss under the Payment of Wages Act.