No redundancy payment for worker laid off after ten years
The Carlow offices of the Workplace Relations Commission
A MAN who worked at the Lazy River Café in Graiguecullen for ten years has been awarded compensation after he was let go from the business without warning, without redundancy pay and without the two weeks’ pay that he was owed.
Angelos Elias had brought a case to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) against Heather Foods and Catering Ltd.
Heather Foods and Catering Ltd operates restaurants and provides catering facilities at various locations, including The Lazy River Café in Graiguecullen. The company’s registered address is Unit 1 and 2 Castleview Quay, Graiguecullen, Carlow, which is also the address of the Lazy River Café.
Mr Elias is the third former employee to bring a case to the WRC over the company’s failure to provide minimum notice, wages due and redundancy pay after it laid off several employees in October 2025. No representative of Heather Foods and Catering attended Mr Elias’s WRC hearing or those of the other former employees.
Mr Elias’s hearing took place on 25 May 2026 in the hearing rooms of the Workplace Relations Commission in Carlow. The WRC adjudication officer was Seamus Clinton.
At the hearing, Mr Elias gave evidence that he had started working at the Lazy River Café on 7 June 2015 and had worked there for over ten years until 13 October 2025. On that day, he arrived at work as normal and was informed that the business would not be opening that day.
Mr Elias put into evidence a letter that he had received a week later on 20 October 2025. The letter stated that the business had been forced to close due to insolvency and that there was no means of paying wages or redundancy.
He also entered into evidence his payslip, which confirmed that he was paid gross wages of €540 a week. Mr Elias stated that he did not receive a notice of redundancy and was owed two weeks’ wages when the business closed.
Although a representative for the respondent company did not attend the hearing, the adjudicator said he was satisfied that notice of the hearing had been sent to the correct address as per the company registration website and choose to proceed with a ruling.
The adjudicator said he was satisfied that Mr Elias’s evidence demonstrated that he had been made redundant and ruled that he was entitled to a statutory redundancy lump sum. The award is made on the condition that the complainant has been in insurable employment under the during the period in which he was employed. Although the adjudicator did not set out the amount that Mr Elias was entitled to, statutory redundancy payments are two weeks’ pay for every year of service and one additional week’s pay, capped at €600 a week.
The adjudicator was also satisfied that Mr Elias had not received the adequate notice period given his length of service at the business. He ruled that as Mr Elias had worked at the café for ten years, he was entitled to six weeks’ notice before being made redundant. Heather Food and Catering Limited was ordered to pay him the equivalent of six weeks’ wages – €3,240.
Finally, the adjudicator found that M Elias was owed two weeks’ unpaid wages. The adjudicator was satisfied with the evidence of the letter that Mr Elias had received on 20 October 2025, where his former employer stated that there was no means to pay him his final two weeks’ wages. Therefore, he ruled that the company also owed Mr Elias two weeks’ wages, amounting to €1,080.
