The Complainant referred his case to the Labour Court after the Adjudication Officer held that the complaints were not well founded, except in one instance relating to a minor and a non-recurring breach of Regulation 10 for which the Complainant was awarded the sum of €200. The Complainant was employed by the Respondent from the 1st of July 2013 until the 1st of February 2019 as a Driver to drive a goods vehicle between Limerick and a depot in Dublin. The Complainant submitted that the Respondent failed to provide any complete or accurate record of his working hours.

The Complainant would normally commence between 5.00pm and 6.00pm, Monday to Friday. He would assist with loading the vehicle and depart for Dublin anytime between 7.00pm and 11.00pm, depending on whether there were delays in the goods arriving. Arrival times back in Limerick were variable. The Complainant submitted that he almost never had a proper break and occasionally he would have a sandwich and tea while filling up at a petrol station. The Complainant submitted that the Respondent failed to produce records as sought by the Complainant’s Solicitors and only produced “Tranzaura” records at the Adjudication Officer’s hearing which were incomplete and inaccurate.

The Respondent denied that there were breaches of the Regulations or if there were, then they were only minor breaches as found by the Adjudication Officer. The Respondent added further that the time for loading the truck was variable, therefore that the “starting times” on the records were not accurate. He maintained that if the Complainant was not completing the records correctly by not including his loading time while in the Limerick depot before he departed then that was an error on the Complainant’s part as he was required by the Regulations to fill in the tachograph details correctly.  For his part the Complainant said he had been asked by management not to insert the tachograph  card until he was leaving the depot in his truck as otherwise, he would not be permitted to drive continuously to Dublin without a break, which would leave him late for the drivers who arrived into work in the mornings. He described it as a mutual arrangement between himself and management.

The Labour Court was of the view that there is no reason in principle why tachograph records, properly maintained which record periods of availability, break times and rest times, cannot meet an employer’s obligation under Regulation 12 of the Regulations. In the absence of ‘sign in and sign out’ records, the tachograph records furnished to the Court cannot be relied upon as an accurate record of working time, discounting periods of availability, break times, and rest times.  On that basis and in the absence of any corroboration of the hours actually worked by the Complainant, the Court must find that the Respondent was in breach of Regulations 5, 8 and 10 of the Regulations. Therefore, the Labour Court awarded the Complainant the sum of €5,100 in compensation for the contraventions and ordered that the Respondent pay that sum within six weeks of the Determination.
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2021/february/rtd211.html