Staff who are seeking redundancy money after a Co Offaly nursing home closed in July would have to wait nearly nine months before it came before the Employment Appeals Tribunal, an Oireachtas committee was told yesterday.
The Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business was told that the only course open to the employees was to go to the tribunal in the absence of employers signing the necessary forms to allow payments.
The nursing home at Rahan closed after the board of directors of Tullybeg Retirement Village Ltd cited financial troubles.
The 65 staff were made redundant but then staged a sit-in over unpaid wages and redundancy believed to amount to €144,000.
A total of 55 employees would be entitled to statutory redundancy.
When the nursing home closed, bailiffs from the Revenue Commissioners moved into Beechlawn golf course and driving range, which is housed in the same complex.
Three people – Ted Cunningham, Irene Johnson, and Liam Grennan – are listed as directors of both companies. Mr Cunningham (57), from Farran, Co Cork, was arrested and released without charge in Cork during the course of a money-laundering investigation in January.
A local auctioneer has the 58-acre Tullybeg complex up for sale at €6.5 million.
Yesterday, principal officer at the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, Seán Ward, said the only course open to the employees was to take their case to the tribunal.
The department had been advised that the employer had not signed the forms to allow payments.
Mr Ward said the quickest way for the staff to get their money was if the employer was willing to sign the forms, irrespective of ability to pay.