A courier whose pay was docked for accidentally damaging a customer’s garage door last year has won a claim for non-payment of wages.
The courier, Cashel Mulgrew, secured the decision at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 against Napier Couriers Ltd, which traded as Nügo and Fastway prior to going into receivership last year.
Mr Mulgrew spent about a year and a half at the company before quitting in September 2025 for family reasons, he told a hearing last month.
The door was damaged during a delivery to a Co Mayo property in “severe” weather a few weeks before he resigned, Mr Mulgrew explained.
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“I went to open up a garage door at a property where we were delivering to and unfortunately in trying to push the garage door so it wouldn’t fall back down, the door came off its roller,” he said.
“I was able to still make delivery,” he said. “It was purely by accident, there was no intent to cause damage,” he said.
A complaint to the company followed, the tribunal heard. Mr Mulgrew said a few weeks after that that, he decided the time was right to part ways with the firm and submitted his resignation.
“I got a phone call from one of the managers,” Mr Mulgrew said. “His exact words were: ‘They’re going to penalise you for whatever damage that’s been done on the garage door.’”
He said he told the manager in reply there was “no malicious intent”.
“I said also: ‘I’m employed by the company, so the complaint would be between the lady whose property was damaged and the business, not necessarily myself,’” Mr Mulgrew said.
The manager undertook to get back to him, but never did, Mr Mulgrew said.
Two days later, he received a payslip and found that €305 had been deducted from his pay for his second-to-last week on the job, he said.
He said he understood that to be “half the cost the lady had claimed would be necessary to fix the door”, but that he was never shown any receipts or invoices to support this.
He said when he complained about the deduction to the head of human resources at the firm. The complainant said they later informed him a further €305 would be docked from his final pay, but that this didn’t happen.
Mr Mulgrew said his contract required a week’s notice in writing of any such deduction from his wages.
“[That] didn’t happen,” he said.
The cost of the damage to the door, he said, “should have been covered by the company under its insurance”.
He added that if he was planning to stay in the job, he would have faced financial hardship and the possible loss of his tenancy on a flat he was renting in Sligo at the time.
“It would have been my rent or my money for food or heating,” he said.
The company management was not represented at the hearing, but was deemed by adjudicator Shay Henry to be on notice. He noted correspondence from the receiver confirming it would not attend.
He accepted Mr Mulgrew’s uncontested evidence that the deduction was neither consented to nor provided for by contract.
Upholding the complaint under the Payment of Wages Act, he awarded Mr Mulgrew €305 in unpaid wages.
