A motor garage that put an unregistered apprentice mechanic to work for three months without wages has been directed to pay him €5,418 after failing to successfully argue it was entitled to pay him less than two-fifths of the minimum wage.
The worker, Moeez Ahmad, secured the award on foot of a complaint under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 after the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) rejected the position of his employer, Gorey Automotive Services, that it only owed him €4.75 an hour for the three months he spent working there.
At a hearing last month, Mr Ahmad told the tribunal he did some unpaid work experience at the garage in July 2024 and went on to take up full-time employment on September 30th.
He said that he worked 9am to 6pm for 59 days between September 30th 2024 and January 6th 2025, but “was not paid for the hours worked”.
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He said his employer told him he “would get paid when he was registered as an apprentice” but not for the “trial period”.
Adnan Farooq, who appeared on behalf of the respondent, told the WRC the deal with Mr Ahmad was that he “would be paid cash until the time he was registered as an apprentice with Solas” at the apprentice rate of pay.
Mr Farooq said the appropriate rate for an apprentice motor mechanic was €190 a week – and that he “would not have hired [Mr Ahmad]” if it meant paying minimum wage, but rather “someone with experience”.
He added that the business intended to “backpay the complainant at the apprentice rate” and that the parties had “parted ways” when Mr Ahmad sought the national minimum wage.
The tribunal heard the garage applied to register with Solas in October that year, and that an adviser from the State training agency visited the workplace to advise on requirements.
However, Mr Farooq stated that the registration forms were “misdirected in the post”, causing a delay to Mr Ahmad’s registration.
Mr Farooq said he accepted that the business owed Mr Ahmad wages, but did not agree they were payable at the national minimum wage – outlining to the tribunal that it intended to pay the complainant his back wages at the apprentice rate.
In her decision, adjudicator Kara Turner noted that it was “common case that there were no wages paid” to Mr Ahmad from September 30th 2024 toJanuary 6th 2025.
She noted the garage’s position that an apprentice motor mechanic was paid €190 a week for a five-day week working 9am to 6pm with an hour of unpaid breaks during the day.
“This equates to €4.75 per hour,” she wrote. The minimum wage applicable to Mr Ahmad, according to his age, was €11.43 an hour up to the end of 2024, and rose to €12.15 in 2025, she added.
Ms Turner wrote that while the National Minimum Wage Act 2000 exempted apprentices, Mr Ahmad had not been registered as one. She added that any issue about the exchange of registration forms with Solas was “immaterial”.
“The real issue is that I can find no lawful basis to support the respondent’s position that an hourly pay rate of €4.75, or other apprentice rate of pay, was the properly payable rate,” she wrote.
She found that Mr Ahmad was entitled to the national minimum wage applicable to his age for his time in employment with the garage, awarding him €5,418 in compensation on that basis.
