In July 2014, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
published the Workplace Relations Bill 2014. The Workplace
Relations Act 2014 (the "Act") was
signed into law by the President on 20 May 2015, with a
commencement date of 1 July looking likely at this
stage.
The key reform proposed in the Act is the establishment of a new
Workplace Relations Commission ("WRC")
as the umbrella body for dealing with workplace complaints in the
first instance. The WRC will, essentially, take over the
statutory function of the various other employment law adjudicatory
bodies, such as the EAT and the Equality Tribunal.
Adjudication officers will hear all claims at first instance, and
an expanded and reconfigured Labour Court will deal with all cases
on appeal. Labour Court decisions can be appealed to the High
Court, on a point of law only, which should in practice mean very
few cases will go beyond the Labour Court stage. This new
system effectively reduces an employment dispute to two hearings
– an initial case and an appeal, within the one
system.
This two-tier structure streamlines and replaces the current
system, whereby employees can refer a dispute to one or more of a
number of different statutory bodies including the EAT, the
Equality Tribunal, the Labour Relations Commission and/or the
Rights Commissioner Service, as well as the civil courts.
Employees will still be able to issue proceedings in the civil
courts, however, multiple statutory claims before numerous
different bodies will now come to an end.
In addition to streamlining current procedure, certain procedural
rules have been harmonised. The standard six month limitation
period for making a claim still stands, however, this can now be
extended for a further six months for a reasonable cause across
all relevant employment legislation. Prior to this,
there were differing tests applied in an application for an
extension, depending on the legislation.
An adjudication officer will have the power to strike out cases
which are not pursued for one year or more and decisions will
be published within 28 days of the hearing, which if adhered to
will be a significant development. The hearing will be in
private and the decisions will be published in anonymised format on
workplacerelations.ie. Decisions on appeal will not be
anonymised, and the hearing will be in public.
On establishment of the WRC, all cases previously dealt with in
the different fora will be automatically transferred to it.
The only exception to this is the EAT which will continue to exist
until it has concluded all cases issued before it prior to the
legislation coming into effect, so both systems will exist in
parallel for possibly up to 18 months.
The Act does not amend any substantive employment rights, save for
some expected changes in respect of accruing annual leave whilst on
sick leave, to bring Irish law in line with some recent decisions
at European level. It is expected that a statutory instrument
will be enacted providing for the procedural rules of the WRC.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
