Property agency ordered to pay ex-employee €182,700

REPRESENTATIVES of an overseas property agency who failed to turn up at an Employment Appeals Tribunal have been ordered to pay €182,700 to a former employee.

The EAT ruled that Shanghai Vision, a Dublin-based company offering properties in Shanghai to Irish investors, had constructively dismissed Seamus Keating.

The tribunal said it had no option but to award Mr Keating of Prospect Meadows, Stocking Lane, Rathfarnham, Co Dublin a sum of €176,250 in compensation for his loss.

It also awarded him €4,519 for the company’s failure to provide him with minimum notice and €1,931 in back holiday pay.

The company which was founded five years ago by Cork-born businessman, David Cunningham, failed to appear at a hearing of the EAT on May 12.

Shanghai Vision which is located at Upper Pembroke St in Dublin also has offices in Britain, Australia and China.

Meanwhile, the Gresham Hotel in Dublin has been ordered to pay €24,000 compensation to a restaurant supervisor who resigned after being threatened with violence by a colleague.

The EAT has ruled that the well-known hotel on O’Connell Street had shown “a chronic failure of management” in being unaware of a serious incident between the two members of staff.

It ruled that Liam Sheppard of Abercorn Square, Inchicore, who worked as a supervisor in the hotel restaurant, was constructively dismissed.

The inquiry heard that Mr Sheppard had a heated argument with a chef on April 17, 2004 in which he was threatened with having boiling water poured over him.

“The tribunal is satisfied that the claimant was left with no option but to resign and finds that he was constructively dismissed,” the EAT ruled.