Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This amendment is being introduced to bring clarity to the situation as regards to whom complaints can be made under the Employment of Employees (Temporary Agency Work) Act 2012. The 2012 Act is a unique employment law in that there are three actors involved: the employee who is the agency worker; the employer who is the agency and the hirer which is the entity for which the agency worker carries out the work. The 2012 Act clearly distinguishes those sections of the Act where an employee can take a case against the employer from those sections of the Act where an employee can take the case against the hirer. As the purpose of the Workplace Relations Bill is to streamline structure and processes rather than to make any substantive changes in the employment rights legislation, it is important that section 42 of the Bill, which deals with the presentation of complaints, clearly reflects this distinction. The amendments being made in section 42 do not change the broad scheme of section 42 as it relates to the temporary agency workers Act. It remains the case that those provisions of the temporary agency workers Act which can be subject of a claim against an employer included in Schedule 5 of the Bill. The amendment being made to subsection(1) clarifies that the provisions listed in that Schedule are those where a complaint can be made that an employee's employer has contravened any of the proposed provisions in Schedule 5. The previous text did not specify against whom a complaint could be made, simply stating that an employee or a specified person could present a case or complaint to the director general that a provision in Schedule 5 had been contravened in relation to the complainant. This ambiguity is now being clarified. Instances where a complaint under the temporary agency workers Act can be made against the hirer are dealt with in Paragraph 3A and there is no change in this regard as no clarification was deemed necessary.

This distinction between hirer and employer has to be reflected accurately in the making of a complaint to clarify that in certain cases it is the hirer who is responsible and not the employer.