WRC awards compensation to seven more Laois café employees
SEVEN more former workers have been awarded compensation by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) against the owners of The Lazy River Café in Graiguecullen for unpaid wages, annual leave and redundancy.
This brings the total number of former Lazy River Café workers who have been awarded compensation by the WRC to ten after Shane and Oisin Hanbury were awarded compensation in March and Angelos Elias was awarded compensation in May.
The seven former employees are Wilson Ventura, Laura Barcoe, Ben Crotty, Ellie Guidera, Nicole Dowling, Nicola Kirwan and Patricia Nangle. Each of them self-represented at their hearings.
The Lazy River Café is owned by the catering company Heather Foods & Catering Limited. Neither the owners nor a representative for them have attended any of the WRC hearings for the ten former employees.
The hearings were held in the WRC rooms in Carlow town on various dates in July and were overseen by presiding officer, Seamus Clinton.
Most of the former workers attested that they had been informed that they were being made redundant on 13 October 2025 when many turned up for work and there was a staff meeting where the redundancies were announced.
However, Ben Crotty testified that he was in college when the staff were called to a meeting. He heard from a family member that the business had closed, which was confirmed when he contacted the owner later that week.
All the former employees, apart from Ben Crotty, supplied evidence that they had received a letter on 20 October 2025 from the owner, which stated that the “business was forced to close due to insolvency and there was no means of paying outstanding wages.” All former members of staff testified and supplied evidence to show that they were not paid two weeks of outstanding wages owed to them after being made redundant. The café owners were ordered to pay all the complainants for two weeks’ of unpaid wages based on their gross weekly salary.
Ms Nangle, Mr Crotty and Ms Barcoe had worked at the café for more than three years before being made redundant. Ms Guidera and Ms Dowling had worked there for two years, Mr Ventura for 14 months and Ms Kirwan for two months before being made redundant.
The owners of The Lazy River Café were also ordered to pay a statutory redundancy lump sum to Ms Dowling, Ms Barcoe and Mr Crotty based on the length of time they worked there and their gross weekly wage.
Additionally, the owners were ordered to pay Mr Ventura, Ms Barcoe, Ms Guidera, Ms Dowling and Ms Kirwan for unpaid accrued annual leave. Ms Guidera was found to have accrued 87 hours of annual leave worth €1,184.
The owners were also ordered to pay Ms Dowling €945 after it was found that they had given her inadequate notice that she was to be made redundant, as laid out in the ***Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts***.
