Employee awarded €126,000 in unpaid salary based on uncontested evidence.

The Complainant commenced employment on 3 March 2025 after being invited by the Respondent’s CEO to leave secure pensionable employment and take up a senior role developing wellbeing services. She said the agreed salary was €150,000 gross per year and that she worked 8 / 9 hours daily. From the outset, wages were not paid as agreed. The CEO repeatedly gave assurances that payment was imminent, attributing delays to staff absences, blocked bank accounts and international investment transfers. The Complainant said she continued working in reliance on those assurances while suffering severe financial hardship, including mortgage arrears, loss of her car and difficulties funding medical treatment for herself and her disabled child. She received only €11,500 in total. She also sought an extension of time, relying on serious medical, financial and family difficulties which she said had prevented an earlier referral.

The Respondent did not attend the adjudication hearing (and made no application for an adjournment or postponement). The Complainant’s sworn evidence that she was employed from March 2025 at a salary of €150,000 gross per annum remained uncontested. Likewise, the documentary exchanges showing repeated requests for payment and repeated promises or excuses from the Respondent were not challenged. The Respondent therefore advanced no substantive defence. The Adjudicating Officer was accordingly required to determine the complaint on the basis of the uncontested evidence, while still applying the statutory test as to what wages were properly payable.

The Adjudicating Officer first granted an extension of time, finding that the Complainant had shown reasonable cause for delay. Her evidence concerning ill-health, inability to attend treatment, financial hardship, family difficulties and responsibilities for a disabled child was accepted as credible and sufficient to explain and excuse the late referral. The cognisable period was therefore extended to twelve months. On the substantive claim, the Officer applied the principle that a Payment of Wages Act claim first requires identification of the wages “properly payable”. The Complainant’s uncontested evidence established an agreed salary of €150,000 gross annually, equivalent to €12,500 per month. The Officer accepted that 11 months’ salary was due, less €11,500 already paid. The unpaid balance was therefore treated as an unlawful deduction. The complaint was declared well founded and the Respondent was directed to pay €126,000 gross.

Employers should:                

• Ensure that agreed salary arrangements are documented clearly and honoured in practice. Repeated assurances that payment is imminent will not protect an employer where wages remain unpaid. Where cash-flow or banking difficulties arise, employers should communicate candidly and avoid continuing to require substantial work without paying contractual remuneration. 
  
  
• Remember that under the Payment of Wages Act, the critical question is what remuneration was properly payable. The WRC will examine the contract, communications, payment history and surrounding evidence. Informal attempts to re-characterise an employee as a consultant after work has commenced are unlikely to succeed where the factual and/or contractual relationship points to employment. 
  
  
• Note, where an employer considers a claim overstated, failure to attend the WRC leaves sworn evidence and documentary material unchallenged. Ignoring the process can result in very substantial awards.

The full case can be found here.