A worker sacked after complaining repeatedly about her employer’s practice of not deducting PAYE or PRSI from her salary has won €10,000 for unfair dismissal.
Maja Goertz, an account executive at the Dublin-headquartered educational technology start-up Educatly Ltd, told a tribunal that she was urged to resign on the basis her actions “did not align with the organisation’s values” when she questioned the failure to deduct tax from her pay.
When she refused to quit, she told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), she was “locked out of the computer system within an hour”.
Goertz worked remotely from Spain between January and July 2025 under an employment contract with the Irish arm of the company, she told the WRC.
She said she was “unhappy” with the company’s instruction to her that she “did not have to pay any tax” and that her salary would be paid to her “without any statutory deductions”.
Goertz told the WRC she questioned the legality of this despite her employer’s assurances, and that the matter was of “huge concern” to her.
In July 2025, Goertz said, her employer presented her with a proposed salary reduction of 60 per cent to her basic pay, and a further deduction of 40 per cent to another portion of her pay.
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This was also to affect her colleagues’ salaries, she said in evidence.
The proposed deductions would have reduced her pay to less than the National Minimum Wage, she told the WRC.
She said she communicated her dissatisfaction with the pay cut plan and the taxation issues as protected disclosures, arguing they amounted to “relevant wrongdoings” for the purposes of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014.
Her evidence was that as soon as she did so, she was accused of “extreme behaviour” and told she should resign.
She was told her actions “did not align with the organisation’s values”, she added.
When she refused to resign, she told the WRC, she was “locked out” of the company’s computer system and had her employment terminated.
Adjudication officer Andrew Heavey noted the respondent company’s failure to attend either of two online hearings convened to hear Goertz’s complaints.
Heavey wrote that he was satisfied Goertz made protected disclosures concerning the taxation of her salary, noting her “repeated attempts to get clarity on the issue”.
“I am also satisfied that the way the complainant was treated by way of an immediate dismissal for raising these issues, including the unlawful pay reduction, was an act of penalisation,” Heavey wrote.
He directed the respondent to pay Goertz €10,000 in compensation under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.
Two further complaints by Goertz challenging the pay deduction as being both unlawful and a no-notice change to her contract were not well founded, as she was sacked before it happened, Heavey added.