Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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55. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the additional resources that will be made available to the Workplace Relations Commission in order for it to implement the objectives in its strategy statement, Fair and Compliant Workplaces and Equal Treatment in Services 2019 to 2022; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20358/19]

Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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My Department works closely with the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) monitoring its staffing and budgetary requirements, including anticipating future resource requirements, to ensure that it is supported and adequately resourced to fulfil its mandate. Additional funding has already been provided in 2019 to enable the WRC deal with the anticipated increased workload arising from An Garda Síochána gaining access to the WRC and to facilitate an improved delivery of the full range of WRC services to regional locations. The WRC budget for 2019 is €15 million for pay and non-pay. This represents an increase of €1 million on the 2018 allocation.

The WRC has almost 200 staff located in its Dublin headquarters and the regional offices in Carlow, Cork, Shannon and Sligo. There are currently 57 inspectors in the WRC which is a 4% increase on the 2015 figure. The adjudication service of the WRC is supplemented by a panel of over 30 external adjudicators. This panel will be further extended in 2019 by an additional cohort of adjudicators who are currently undergoing training.

In terms of output, in 2018, over €3 million in unpaid wages was recovered for employees by the Inspection service. The adjudication service increased its hearings by 20% in 2018 and the conciliation service held 1145 hearings which impacted on 926,427 employees.

I am confident that the increased funding detailed above is sufficient to also support the WRC in achieving its strategy objective which is to ensure that people in dispute about non-compliance, or conflicts in Irish workplaces, will have their disputes resolved quickly and fairly, and those who believe they have suffered unequal treatment in the delivery of service will have their complaints heard quickly and fairly.