Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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158. To ask the Minister for Trade, Enterprise and Employment if he will intervene in situations in which employees of meat processing plants are laid off due to the fact they live in direct provision. [28253/20]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Ireland’s employment rights frameworks are horizontal, meaning that any statutory employment right must protect all workers and cannot discriminate on a sectoral or other basis, such as where a person lives.

Ireland has a comprehensive body of employment legislation, in respect of which the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) is mandated to secure compliance, and we have a strong track record when it comes to protecting the rights of workers. Ireland’s employment rights legislation protects all employees who are legally employed on a contract of service basis.

When selecting employees for lay off or short-time working, employers must apply the same criteria for selection as for redundancy. The criteria should be reasonable and applied fairly.

Under employment equality legislation selection for lay-off must not discriminate against employees on any of the 9 grounds. Any worker who feels they have been treated unfairly may pursue their case with the WRC.

Similarly, any workers who feel they have been unfairly dismissed can pursue a case with the WRC under various pieces of legislation such as; the Unfair Dismissals Act or Protection of Employees Acts for Fixed-Term and Part-Time workers.

A complaint or multiple complaints can be submitted to the WRC by completing the online form available from on the WRC website at www.workplacerelations.ie.

The WRC Information & Customer Service centre can also be contacted at 1890 80 80 90.