Dr. Adrienne Duff:

Bullying is a psychosocial hazard that should be considered a health and safety hazard, along with many others, in the workplace. The role of the authority is to ensure that an employer has systems and processes in place to mitigate bullying and ensure it is not facilitated or tolerated in the workplace.

We do not have a role in adjudicating on individual bullying complaints. That is a matter for the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. The authority and the WRC have come together in partnership to produce a code of practice for employers and employees for the prevention and resolution of workplace bullying. As recently as 2021, we updated that code of practice. We also have an e-learning course on our website and free courses on workplace bullying. Since that has been introduced, over 4,000 of those courses have been taken. We have a role with regard to bullying, along with the WRC, and that is set out in the code of practice.