Former employee of Parnells GAA club tells WRC he was left short on wages

A former employee of Dublin GAA club Parnells says the club left him short on his wages when he was laid off for the Covid-19 pandemic – and is now failing to give him his severance pay.

The club, home to Dublin’s eight-time All-Ireland-winning goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton, is facing multiple employment rights claims by former clubhouse staff following pandemic lay-offs – while the State might have to step in and pay at least one of them a redundancy lump sum after a claim brought before the Workplace Relations Commission on Wednesday..

Parnells was once regarded as the richest GAA club in the country after a Celtic Tiger-era land deal for playing fields brought in a reported €23 million.

Its management failed to make any appearance atWednesday’s hearing into complaints by former part-time security guard and barman Graham Coventry under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967, the Payment of Wages Act 1991, and the Organisation of Working Time Act 2004.

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Mr Coventry told the tribunal that in addition to the non-payment of his redundancy lump sum when he looked for it after over two years on lay-off, he was also left short on two weeks’ wages and some holiday entitlements.

He said that after he and his colleagues were put on lay-off when Covid-19 first hit, the club’s committee told staff at a meeting in August 2020 that the clubhouse “should be opening back up soon”.

Mr Coventry said he got “no response” to emails looking for a reopening date, with no progress until July, 2021 when there was a further meeting with the committee.

“They said they weren’t in a position to reopen. There was talk of leasing out the clubhouse, that there was a few companies interested in leasing the clubhouse off them,” he said.

“They said they were in financial difficulties, that’s why they didn’t open, due to Covid,” he added.

He and some colleagues sought information on their redundancy entitlements from the committee at that point, and were told to file statutory claim forms, he said.

The required payment did not come after he and two others did so in April 2022, Mr Coventry added.

He told the tribunal that he was getting hourly pay of €15 for variable hours of between 27 and 40 hours weekly, and the club owed him two weeks’ wages, putting the figure due to him at around €550 a week.

WRC adjudicating officer Breiffni O’Neill noted that the tribunal case officer had sent the club a registered letter as required under the Redundancy Payment Act, and having satisfied himself the club was properly on notice, pressed ahead with the matter.

Mr Coventry said that he had lost access to his payslips from the employment as they had been going to an old email account, but that he could retrieve pay records from his Revenue account, which Mr O’Neill asked him to submit to the tribunal.

“There’s a number of complaints before me. I’ll issue a decision, just send the decision into the social insurance fund and they’ll pay you and then they’ll chase the club for the redundancy money,” the adjudicator told Mr Coventry.

He told the complainant that his pay and holiday claims had been lodged too late for the WRC to have jurisdiction, however.

“I’ll be clear: if Parnells don’t pay it, give them a few weeks to pay it, if you want, and then send it into the Department [of Social Protection] and they’ll chase it for you,” Mr O’Neill said.

“I had a feeling I wouldn’t get the wages or the holidays; but as long as I get the redundancy, that’s the main thing,” Mr Coventry said, before the hearing was closed.