Dáil debates
Thursday, 29 June 2023
Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions
Unfair Dismissals
9:30 am
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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5. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his views on strengthening the redress available under section 7 of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 to employees unfairly dismissed from their employment. [31680/23]
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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What are the Minister's views on the redress available to workers who have been unfairly dismissed according to the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977. To be fair, the Act is nearly as old as us, although I do not include the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, in that, and it is definitely due a re-examination.
Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for making me feel old this morning.
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I said "as us". I was including myself.
Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, is not far off it either.
Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Ireland has a robust suite of employment rights legislation to protect employees. Where employees believe their employment rights have been breached, they have the right to refer complaints to the WRC for an adjudication and possible redress. The Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 to 2015 provide that where an employee has been unfairly dismissed, an adjudication officer and, on appeal, the Labour Court may make an order for the reinstatement, re-engagement or awarding of compensation to the employee. It is a matter for the adjudication officer and, on appeal, the Labour Court to determine which form of redress is appropriate, having regard to all the circumstances.
If the redress is an award of compensation and the employee has incurred financial loss attributable to the dismissal, the adjudication officer may, where it is just and equitable, award compensation of up to two years' remuneration. Where the unfair dismissal involved a protected disclosure, an award of up to five years' remuneration may be made. Where the employee has incurred no financial loss attributable to the dismissal, an award of up to four weeks' remuneration may be made.
Although the WRC does not track or record adjudication decisions under the Unfair Dismissals Act by the sum awarded, in 2020, a review of WRC adjudication decisions and recommendations was carried out on a once-off basis. That review showed that the second highest number of claims had been made under the Unfair Dismissals Acts. Of those, 180 awards had been made, totalling €2.07 million in compensation for unfair dismissals, a significant portion of the total sum of awards of just over €5 million made by the WRC that year.
The Unfair Dismissals Acts strike a reasonable balance between the interests of workers and employers. Ireland’s current system of unfair dismissals is comparable to similar systems in other jurisdictions. In my follow-up response, I will address what we are going to do regarding reviews of legislation.
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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My problem with the redress available under the Unfair Dismissals Acts is that some employers, especially large ones, can dismiss workers if they see them as troublesome, awkward, annoying or whatever, and they can take a chance because they know the likelihood is that, at a time of full employment, the employee will be re-employed and all the employer will be on the hook for is four weeks' pay. It does not operate in the interests of workers. The employment market at a given time is what determines what happens. If a person is likely to be re-employed and is re-employed, he or she will have mitigated the potential loss of earnings.
There is nothing to compensate the workers. It is traumatic to lose your job in an unfair dismissal. I know because I have taken such cases, which are notoriously difficult to prove. Furthermore, the award made against the employer does not act as a deterrent. Big employers with big pockets can go to the WRC and the likelihood, in a time of high employment, is the person will have been re-employed, bearing in mind the Act came into being at a time of high unemployment. As a result, the employer that has unfairly dismissed the worker will be on the hook for only four weeks' pay, which is just not a deterrent. There have been cases where people have been unfairly dismissed and the employer has more or less openly said it knows it is going to be on the hook for only a couple of weeks' wages and it is almost worth it, but that cannot be the case.
In any review or consideration, the Minister has to look at the deterrent as well as the award. The law has to act as a deterrent to employers that would seek to dismiss a worker unfairly.
Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I accept the principle that there has to be a real deterrent to prevent unfair dismissal. That is the point of having industrial relations machinery that deals with that. Nevertheless, we have to try to get the balance right between, on the one hand, protecting workers and making sure there is not unfair dismissal, with an appropriate deterrent in that regard, and also having a proportionate response in the context of potential income loss, other job opportunities and so on. I accept the point.
I am sure the Deputy is aware my Department is working on the establishment of an employment law review group. Proposals in respect of the Unfair Dismissals Act can, of course, be considered as part of that future work programme. It would be useful for interested parties or case studies and so on to be submitted to that review group. I am certainly open to it but the current system, by and large in terms of industrial machinery to manage the relationships between employers and workers, has worked reasonably well in Ireland. I think the numbers I outlined regarding payments made in 2020 show some evidence of that, but that is not to say we are not open to review or to updating the legislation.
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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That is welcome. If the Minister is looking for case studies, he could look at the case of the Murphy 4, who were dismissed from Murphy International Limited in Limerick in circumstances they say arose from their trade union activities. It is my opinion that if the redress under the Unfair Dismissals Act had been more appropriate, that could have acted as a deterrent in this instance and perhaps these workers would be still employed. They face a lengthy wait. The Minister and the Government talk a lot about the industrial relations machinery. It is great, but people have to wait. It is a bit like the health service: it is great when you get in, but you have to wait a long time to get in. For a worker who has been unfairly dismissed, it is a long wait with the likelihood of getting just four weeks' pay at the end of it, and that is if you manage to prove it.
As I said, it is hard to prove. There is no deterrent currently. It was a deterrent when it was put in place because the likelihood was that the worker would not have been re-employed quickly. Now the likelihood is that the worker will be re-employed quickly, there must be a deterrent element. I draw the Minister's attention to the case of the Murphy 4 and ask that he looks at it in the context of any review.
9:40 am
Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I do not want to talk about any individual case on the floor of the Dáil but I want to make it very clear that it is unlawful to dismiss a person from his or her job simply because he or she is a member of a trade union. Nobody should lose his or her job because he or she has chosen to join a trade union in Ireland. It is important to say that.
I take the Deputy's point in terms of the strength of the jobs market at the moment but we have to pass legislation for all circumstances. Who knows where we will be in five years' time or even two years' time, given the extraordinary disruptions to which we have had to respond over the past five to seven years from Brexit to Covid to the impact of the war in Ukraine? Who knows what the future holds? You cannot legislate for a full employment situation and you certainly should not be legislating on the basis of significant unemployment either, so we need to get the balance right in terms of upgrading legislation. Any legislation that dates back as far as this does needs to be reviewed. We are setting up a process to do that.