A service station firm owned by Supermacs boss Pat McDonagh and his wife has been ordered to pay €1,250 to a cash office worker let go because of the shift to card payments.
The worker, Eve Kilcoyne, secured the sum as compensation for breaches of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 and the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 by her former employer, Macs Place Ltd on foot of complaints to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
The tribunal found that the company, operator of a convenience store and filling station in Charlestown, Co Mayo, had presented evidence backing up its position that Kilcoyne’s job had become redundant in 2024.
However, the dismissal was rendered unfair because of procedural deficiencies with the firm’s redundancy process, the tribunal found.
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Kilcoyne initially joined the company in November 2016 as one of the staff in a Spar store at the premises, but soon “became the main cash office person”, the WRC recorded in a decision published on Monday.
At that time, so much cash was being counted and balanced at the business that it warranted a part-time role and a cash office, the tribunal noted.
Kilcoyne worked three hours a day up to lunchtime five days a week doing the work, the tribunal heard.
Area manager Damian O’Donnell said in evidence the business had gone from doing 70 per cent of its transactions in cash to just 30 per cent when it eliminated Kilcoyne’s position.
“Money was tight and the role of a cash officer was gone,” he said.
He said when a job in a Supermac’s restaurant on the grounds of the forecourt was proposed to Kilcoyne, she said she “did not want to work for Supermac’s”, the tribunal noted.
The employer’s position was that its Charlestown service station was the last remaining location operating a cash office, the tribunal heard.
Another company witness, human resources manager Jacinta Greene, said Kilcoyne was “honest, trustworthy and reliable”.
While management had hoped the complainant would stay, a review of labour costs found it “was not sustainable to keep her”.
The complainant’s evidence was that she was “talked to like she was nothing” and asked “did she think she was management, because she wasn’t”, the WRC recorded.
Kilcoyne said in evidence that the sustainability of the cash office was discussed at a review meeting in 2023, which she described as “awful”.
Later, she said she was told the cash officer post was “not being invested in” and her options were to wait until the end of the summer for a decision on redundancy or request it straight away.
She said she was “training someone in” on cash office duties at the time, and couldn’t understand the situation.
Kilcoyne was still employed in March 2024, when she was given written notice she was at risk of redundancy and told at a meeting there was “no office position at Charlestown any more”.
She disputed that there had been a redundancy on the basis that she had trained up colleagues on the work and she believed the task was still being done.
Adjudicator Louise Boyle wrote in her decision that it seemed from the evidence that the role of a cash officer occupied by the complainant “was redundant due to a decline in cash and increased card use by customers”.
However, the business’s consideration of alternatives to redundancy was “somewhat arbitrary”, there was no right of representation for the complainant, and no appeals process, she ruled.
This made the complainant’s dismissal unfair on procedural grounds, Ms Boyle wrote.
She awarded Kilcoyne €800 in compensation for unfair dismissal – four weeks’ wages.
The business was also found in breach of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 as it had failed to provide Kilcoyne with updated terms of employment when her duties changed.
Ms Boyle awarded €450 for the breach, bringing the total compensation awarded to Ms Kilcoyne to €1,250
