Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Brady for raising this important matter and giving me an opportunity to respond. Ireland has a robust suite of employment rights legislation which offers extensive protection to employees. Those protections include the Protection of Employment Acts 1977 to 2007, which provide for a process of information and consultation between the employer and employee representatives in circumstances where a collective redundancy is proposed. There is also the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts 1973 to 2005 which give employees entitlements to specified notice periods or payment in lieu of such notice. There is the Payment of Wages Act 1991 which protects outstanding wages, holiday pay, commission and bonuses. In addition, the Redundancy Payment Acts administered by the Minister for Social Protection provide a minimum statutory redundancy payment.

The WRC, which Deputy Brady mentioned, is mandated to secure compliance with employment rights legislation. The WRC customer service section provides information on employment, equality and industrial relations rights and obligations and how to obtain redress where appropriate. Staff from the information unit of the WRC are available to meet with staff individually or collectively to discuss their employment rights, including matters related to redundancy. The WRC customer service section can be contacted at 1890 808090 and the website workplacerelations.iealso provides extensive information on employment rights. It is very important that the WRC provides that information.

The dispute at issue arose from the redundancy of a number of staff members due to the restructuring of the organisation. The parties are currently engaged with the WRC in an effort to resolve the dispute. Even the most intractable of disputes are capable of being resolved when both sides engage constructively and in good faith in a voluntary process. The principle of good faith implies that both sides in a dispute make every effort to reach an agreement and endeavour through genuine and constructive negotiations to arrive at a conclusion that is satisfactory to all concerned. Ireland's system of industrial relations is essentially voluntary in nature and responsibility for the resolution of industrial disputes between employers and workers, whether in redundancy or in collective disputes, rests with the employer, the workers and their representatives. The State provides the industrial relations dispute settlement mechanism to support parties in their efforts to resolve their differences. I urge both parties to continue this engagement in order to find an acceptable resolution to this matter.

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