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Legal Aid
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08-04-2010 1:54pm#1Hello, I have read the charter and I am not looking for legal advice but just some advice in general.
I have been out of full-time employment since last September and have been claiming job seekers allowance ever since, apart from 6 weeks of contract work that I did at the start of this year (for the record the social welfare were fully aware of it and stopped my payments for the duration of the contract).
The trouble is, I never got paid for the contract and even though I was in contact with the employer they are with point blankly refusing to pay me as they said that tools were stolen from the job and that I am one of the suspects.
I'm through with ranting and raving so I will just like to say that these allegations are totally fictitious and I feel that the employer has made them up to withhold my payment.
I am totally broke (living on €196 per week) and in debt because of the contract so I sent a non-payment of wages for to The Rights Commissioner in February, and even though I thought it would take months to get a hearing, I was granted a hearing in mid May.
My problems is as I mentioned above that I am stone broke and I cannot afford legal representation. English is not my native tongue (my girlfriend corrected the grammer in this post) so I would not be at all comfortable in representing myself.
I applied for Legal Aid and I got a letter this morning noticing me that my application was successful..............but the waiting list is 6 months long.
So my hearing is in 6 weeks yet I cannot get legal aid for 6 months
(I have lived in Ireland for 4 years and worked for over 3 years).
To make matters worse my former employer is now suddenly threatening to press charges against me (I think it he is only trying to make me back down over the Rights Commissioner hearing), but if he is not then I could be left high and dry with nobody to represent me.
Has anyone got any advice for me?
Thank you for you time
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Comments
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Mervin J Minky wrote: »Hello, I have read the charter and I am not looking for legal advice but just some advice in general.
I have been out of full-time employment since last September and have been claiming job seekers allowance ever since, apart from 6 weeks of contract work that I did at the start of this year (for the record the social welfare were fully aware of it and stopped my payments for the duration of the contract).
The trouble is, I never got paid for the contract and even though I was in contact with the employer they are with point blankly refusing to pay me as they said that tools were stolen from the job and that I am one of the suspects.
I'm through with ranting and raving so I will just like to say that these allegations are totally fictitious and I feel that the employer has made them up to withhold my payment.
I am totally broke (living on €196 per week) and in debt because of the contract so I sent a non-payment of wages for to The Rights Commissioner in February, and even though I thought it would take months to get a hearing, I was granted a hearing in mid May.
My problems is as I mentioned above that I am stone broke and I cannot afford legal representation. English is not my native tongue (my girlfriend corrected the grammer in this post) so I would not be at all comfortable in representing myself.
I applied for Legal Aid and I got a letter this morning noticing me that my application was successful..............but the waiting list is 6 months long.
So my hearing is in 6 weeks yet I cannot get legal aid for 6 months (I have lived in Ireland for 4 years and worked for over 3 years).
To make matters worse my former employer is now suddenly threatening to press charges against me (I think it he is only trying to make me back down over the Rights Commissioner hearing), but if he is not then I could be left high and dry with nobody to represent me.
Has anyone got any advice for me?
Thank you for you time
First of all. Your employer can't press charges against you. Only the Gardaí can. He's trying to scare you. He can make a complaint if he wants but if you didn't do it it's very unlikely you will be charged. Next time he tells you that tell him to go ahead and you will go to the Garda station with him if he wants.
I don't know much about the rights commissioner but you should get in contact with them and tell them you cannot get legal aid for 6 months and ask them what you should do. They might be able to put back the hearing date until you do.0 -
First of all. Your employer can't press charges against you. Only the Gardaí can. He's trying to scare you. He can make a complaint if he wants but if you didn't do it it's very unlikely you will be charged. Next time he tells you that tell him to go ahead and you will go to the Garda station with him if he wants.
I don't know much about the rights commissioner but you should get in contact with them and tell them you cannot get legal aid for 6 months and ask them what you should do. They might be able to put back the hearing date until you do.
I made mistake in my first post, my apologise. My former employer (through his solicitor) said he would pursue legal action against me and that his solicitor has advised him to contact the Gardaí, but my former employeer has already threaded me with the Gardaí when I approached him about him not giving me my money at the end of the contract.
The simple fact of this matter is that it is my money that I worked for, surely he cannot just simply keep it?
Also the thing with the Rights Commissioners is that if I tell them that I have no legal representation after already getting a hearing date (which could take months to rearrange) it could look really bad on my part and also it might look like I have succumb to my former employers wishes and make him think that he has won. Plus my ex employer works in the building trade he could be bankrupt in 6 months time for all I know.........so he would not be entitled to pay me what he owes me.
This is very frustration situation for me 0 -
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Mervin J Minky wrote: »The simple fact of this matter is that it is my money that I worked for, surely he cannot just simply keep it?
Also the thing with the Rights Commissioners is that if I tell them that I have no legal representation after already getting a hearing date (which could take months to rearrange) it could look really bad on my part and also it might look like I have succumb to my former employers wishes and make him think that he has won. Plus my ex employer works in the building trade he could be bankrupt in 6 months time for all I know.........so he would not be entitled to pay me what he owes me.
This is very frustration situation for me
If I were you, I would ring the Rights Commissioner office and tell them as soon as is possible that you have been granted legal aid but you are on a 6month waiting list - there is NO PROBLEM with putting the case back until you are given your claim number, and it wont be held against you. So do not let that worry you.
If you leave it until the morning of the hearing, then it will look bad, as people will have appeared so tell them tomorrow. Do not delay on this.
As for the issue of not paying you, and suspecting you of theft. This is more tricky. Your employer must report the matter to the Gardai before ANYTHING can happen and the Gardai will ask all employees some questions - this is completely normal, so do not let it bother you. Don't mind the solicitors letter, she or he is trying to scare/intimidate you. It is a formal requirement to write to you -when someone is not familiar with the law, it scares them, so dont worry.
You are entitled to be paid for your work. There is no two ways about it. You have 2 options: either wait until your employer pays you, OR, speak to a civil solicitor about writing to them and demanding payment. There is no way why you should not be paid for your work. I wonder if your employer is avoiding all payments (possibly because English is not your main language and maybe he can exploit this!).
Your solicitor will advise you how to get your money. You might also look at the court website - it has some information about the process.0 -
Thank you all for replies
I am going to get in touch with the Rights Commissioner as soon as I hear back from the Legal Aid Centre that I applied too (I call them this morning and they took note of my issue and will get back to me).
I too think that the threatening solicitor's letter from my ex-employer was a just a plan to throw me off course and intimidate me. If the issue was such a big deal to him then he would have done something about this right away, back in February, when my contract had expired instead of two months later.
I also don't think I can reply to the solicitors letter that he sent me mainly because of money worries. At the beginning of this week I called a few solicitors and they all quoted me around €1,000+ for a consultation, letters and representation. Even without the representation it would still cost like €300+ or so and I simply cannot afford that mainly because I had no social welfare money for 6 weeks and no income that I was expecting at the end of those 6 weeks (my credit card bill is quite big now due to paying rent, bills and grocery's with it - I was going to pay it back with my contract salary). The solicitors did say that they could take the money out of the money that I could be legally awarded but the money is no longer mine, AIB bank/credit card own nearly all of it at this stage, so if I have to pay for solicitors then I would be in even more debt then I am already
Also another big worry is that if/when the hearing gets pushed back to over 6 months then my ex-employer thinks I have just backed down and he can walk all over me. Plus waiting until near the end of the year to get my money is going to be difficult as I am struggling very much right now.0 -
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I got a letter from Legal Aid this morning informing me that Legal Aid representation in front of a Rights Commissioner is not available.
They also told me that I could talk to one of their solicitors for 30 minutes at a charge of €10 but he/she could not write letters/make phone calls on my behalf or represent me in anyway until I have been on the waiting list for 6 months.
I have no idea what to do now 0 -
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I received the decision from the Rights Commissioner in the last week of June, who rule in my favor, but I was told that if my employer still has not paid me the money the he owe me and that I will have to get a Circuit Court order to enforce this decision. So this will take another 6 to 8 weeks to go through............it seems like the justice system takes forever in Ireland, I wish the banks would except such slow payments! :rolleyes:
Anyway, to slay on topic, I have been on Legal Aid waiting for 4 months now so I call them to see my position was on the 6 month waiting list but I was told because I never respond to their last letter they closed my case and I will have a apply to them again and that will take another 6 months so I won't get to talk to a solicitor until February next year
So I will have to fight this alone! I need a signature and stamp from a solicitor for my Circuit Court enforcement application. Can I just walk into any solicitors office and get this? Will they charge me a fee & 'when' my former employer try to counter this claim again with his fony thief story, will his solicitor post to me or the solicitor who signed the papers? (btw I have heard nothing from my former employer apart from one solicitors letter back in April).
I am seriously bracing myself for my former employer to fight this enforcement and most likely delay the decision even more, but surely if he blatantly ignore a Rights Commissioners decision and does not even appeal to EAT then he must be showing himself to be guilty and needs to be punished???
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Mervin J Minky wrote: »I received the decision from the Rights Commissioner in the last week of June, who rule in my favor, but I was told that if my employer still has not paid me the money the he owe me and that I will have to get a Circuit Court order to enforce this decision. So this will take another 6 to 8 weeks to go through............it seems like the justice system takes forever in Ireland, I wish the banks would except such slow payments! :rolleyes:
Anyway, to slay on topic, I have been on Legal Aid waiting for 4 months now so I call them to see my position was on the 6 month waiting list but I was told because I never respond to their last letter they closed my case and I will have a apply to them again and that will take another 6 months so I won't get to talk to a solicitor until February next year
So I will have to fight this alone! I need a signature and stamp from a solicitor for my Circuit Court enforcement application. Can I just walk into any solicitors office and get this? Will they charge me a fee & 'when' my former employer try to counter this claim again with his fony thief story, will his solicitor post to me or the solicitor who signed the papers? (btw I have heard nothing from my former employer apart from one solicitors letter back in April).
I am seriously bracing myself for my former employer to fight this enforcement and most likely delay the decision even more, but surely if he blatantly ignore a Rights Commissioners decision and does not even appeal to EAT then he must be showing himself to be guilty and needs to be punished???
Under what statute(s) did you get an award? Employment law can be tricky as depending on what statute you get an award under, the enforcement of same can go to any one of the EAT, Labour Court, District and Circuit Court!
On the bright side, if the 6 week deadline has passed for your employer to lodge an appeal and he hasn't done so, you don't need to go through the evidence again. The only evidence required is that an award was made, it wasn't complied with and no appeal was lodged.0 -
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How did you get on today at the circuit court?
Good thanks, they were extremely helpful I dropped into a solicitor on the way to swear in my affidavit so all I needed was the stamp duty on the relevant documents and cost me €34 in total. They said it will take a few weeks but I hope everything will be plain sailing from her on in.
I never asked this but I wonder what will happen if my ex-employer ignores this judgement, because he ignored everything else up until now. There has to be be some sort of penalty to pay to deter other employers from doing this to there staff because it can result in people getting into massive debt and should not be tolerated.0 -
I just bumping this thread because I still have not received my wages and I am very frustrated and dishearted with this whole situation
The Circuit Court took around 2 months to send me out the Execution Order to implement the Rights Commissioners decision and when I brought the Execution Order to the Sheriff's office I was told that there is a 3 month waiting list.
That means it won't be until February 2011 before anything is done about it and even then it seems like their won't be any guarantees in getting my money. By the way, I have been looking to get paid since February 2010 so it I will be waiting a whole year!
There has to be something that I can do to speed up this process, I mean how can it take the Sheriff's office 3 months to write a letter demanding my money? I really don't understand these huge waiting times!0 -
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