The sommelier at shuttered Dublin restaurant Shanahan’s on the Green has said he “never heard from Mr Shanahan again” after the owner said he was leaving for America last year with a promise to “resolve matters” when staff went unpaid.
The worker, wine manager Cormac Thunder, was giving evidence to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) earlier this year in a claim for over €4,272.24 in wages and notice not paid out to him when the restaurant shut abruptly last October.
Mr Thunder’s claim under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 against JMS International Holdings, trading as Shanahan’s on the Green, was upheld in a WRC decision published this week, bringing the total due to eight former staff of the high-end restaurant to nearly €40,000.
Mr Thunder told a hearing in May he had been at Shanahan’s for some 13.5 years when he and all his colleagues got an email titled “Shocked! Stunned!” from his employer.
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A copy of a letter attached to the email stated that Revenue had frozen the company’s bank accounts “due to outstanding tax payment obligations”.
The business was “ceasing until further notice” and the company’s owner John Shanahan was to “travel to the US to resolve matters”, the email noted.
“The complainant stated that he never heard from Mr Shanahan again,” adjudication officer Elizabeth Spelman recorded in her decision.
Mr Thunder told the Commission he tried to call Mr Shanahan twice but got no response.
Ms Spelman noted that she, too, had attempted to phone Mr Shanahan twice on the day of the hearing, as there was no appearance on behalf of the restaurant when Mr Thunder’s case was called for hearing. “There was an engaged/disconnected ringtone,” she wrote.
She concluded that the respondent was properly on notice, and pressed on to hear the case that day without the respondent after allowing for a grace period.
She noted from Mr Thunder’s evidence that on top of his basic gross pay of €102 a shift, he was also earning an average of around €700 a week in gratuities and service charges, adding up to a gross weekly average earnings of €1,212.74.
Mr Thunder had told the WRC he was “not paid the amount that was properly payable to him for his last week of employment,” and also received no notice of the termination of his employment, Ms Spelman wrote.
Ms Spelman wrote that while the Payment of Wages Act permitted a worker to recover unpaid tips or gratuities, they did not fall into the definition of wages, so had to be excluded for the purpose of calculating Mr Thunder’s notice pay.
She awarded Mr Thunder €3,060 under the Payment of Wages Act, based on six weeks at €510 a week, and further €1,212.74 for the non-payment in respect of his last week on the job.
Mr Thunder and his former colleagues, waiters Paul Harte, Luke Caragher and David Byrne; chef Piotr Fraszczyk, assistant manager Angelo Lamberti, receptionist Eleanor Donovan, and company book-keeper Katherine Friel, are collectively due €39,727.17 on foot of WRC decisions since the closure.
