Six bar staff at a well-known north Dublin pub being sold after the owner put the operating company into receivership are owed redundancy payments in excess of €70,000.
The Foxhound Inn at Greendale Shopping Centre, Kilbarrack, Dublin 5, featured as a location in the 1996 film adaptation of Roddy Doyle's The Van. It was advertised for sale at €850,000 in October 2019 and remains sale agreed with a guide price of €750,000.
Complaints by Derek Hyland, Kaytlyn Hyland, Billy Hyland, Jacqueline Mulligan, Ann Fulham and Bernadine Murphy under the Redundancy Payments Act against Carnoet Ltd, trading as the Foxhound Inn, were all upheld in decisions published on Thursday by the Workplace Relations Commission.
“We’ve just asked for statutory redundancy. We were told [our employer] was advised not to sign our forms and we were advised to go to the WRC,” Derek Hyland told an adjudication hearing in February.
He said he was given a claim form for statutory redundancy by a book-keeper in the pub’s management company in early 2021.
Legal advice
"When I got this, she said I had to bring it to my employer, Jim Coughlan, " he said. He went to Mr Coughlan's house to get the documentation completed but Mr Coughlan told him he had been advised not to sign by his solicitor, Mr Hyland said.
The form showed the company accepted he had more than 35 years’ service at the Foxhound Inn, with a start date in September 1986. “Once Jim refused to sign it, [the book-keeper] said to leave it back,” he said.
Jacqueline Mulligan said the same instruction was given to all six claimants.
Solicitor Patricia Heavey, who appeared on behalf of the pub's owner, Mr Coughlan, told the hearing that Bank of Ireland had been appointed as receiver, and it had originally been hoped to sell the Foxhound Inn as a going concern.
“I asked [the bank] to come here and speak to you but they declined,” she said. “The company exists but [Mr Coughlan] doesn’t have funds to wind it up. There’s a considerable asset and there are other creditors as well,” she added.
Ms Heavey said Mr Coughlan “very much regrets” how the situation has turned out for his staff, and submitted that the pandemic had made matters worse.
Adjudicating officer Brian Dalton asked whether there was any possibility of keeping the staff in their jobs. "It's sale-agreed at the moment and they won't give us the information," Ms Heavey replied.
Mr Dalton noted the company’s evidence that it had faced “very extreme trading conditions arising from the pandemic”. Derek Hyland had been paid until late August 2020 with his employer drawing on Government Covid-19 wage subsidy schemes to help cover his pay. The other five staff were let go on 15 March 2020.
Decision
In six parallel decisions, Mr Dalton ruled the workers were due statutory redundancy based on their rates of pay at the time of their dismissal and years of service – but that their time on layoff or availing of a Covid-19 income support scheme could not be taken into account.
The largest redundancy payment, about €41,300, is due to Derek Hyland. He also awarded Mr Hyland €2,464 for unpaid leave in 2020 and €140 for public holidays.
Redundancy pay of €16,200 was due to Jacqueline Mulligan, who worked at the pub for nearly 18 years, along with €1,025 in annual leave and public holiday entitlements.
Ann Fulham, who had a weekly income of €80 at the time she was laid off is due €5,500 at the end of nearly 34 years’ service.
Three other workers, Billy Hyland, Kaytlyn Hyland and Bernadine Murphy, are owed redundancy payments of between €2,500 and €3,600, depending on their working hours and years of service, along with smaller sums for annual leave.
