Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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654. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number and specific details of prosecutions taken by her Department or the WRC on foot of complaints from employees for non-issuing of a contract of employment. [21739/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 -2014 provides that an employer must provide his/her employee with a written statement of the particulars of the employee’s terms of employment. It also provides that an employer must notify the employee of any changes in the particulars as given in the statement.  There is no offence provision under the Act to provide for the taking of prosecutions on foot of complaints from employees in relation to the non-issue of a written statement.

The Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 -2014 was amended by the Workplace Relations Commission Act 2015 to provide a right of complaint to an Adjudication Officer of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) with a right of appeal to the Labour Court. Since its establishment on the 1 October 2015, the WRC has received 1,344 specific complaints in relation to non-receipt of a written statement of terms of employment. A small number of these complaints are Inspection related (2 in 2015 and 6 in 2016); the remainder are submitted for Adjudication.

On 2 May 2017, the Government approved draft legislative proposals as a response to the Programme for Government commitment to tackle the problems caused by the increased casualisation of work and to strengthen regulation of precarious work. The proposals seek to ensure that workers must be provided with details of five core terms of employment on or by the fifth day of employment. It creates a new offence where an employer does not provide a written statement of these five core terms of employment within one month of commencement of employment. The draft legislation was referred to the Office of the Attorney General on 4 May for priority drafting of a Bill.