Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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170. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of inspections carried out by the Workplace Relations Commission in each of the years 2015 to 2020 by NACE sector; the number of breaches detected; and the type of breaches detected in tabular form. [14981/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) is an independent, statutory body under the aegis of my Department, established on 1st October 2015 under the Workplace Relations Act 2015. The WRC’s primary functions include the inspection of employment law compliance, the provision of information on employment law, mediation, adjudication, conciliation, facilitation, and advisory services.

Inspections carried out by WRC Inspectors operate on a compliance model. This means that an inspector will work with the employer to ensure that the employer fulfils all their statutory obligations and that any outstanding wages or entitlements are given to workers.

Table 1 sets out by NACE sector the number of inspections carried out by the WRC in each of the years 2015 to 2020. Table 2 sets out the number and the type of breaches detected in the period 2015 to 2020.

Table 1: Inspection cases concluded 2015-2020 by Sector

Note: From January 2019, the WRC has utilised a new inspection case management system which provides richer data in term of sectoral reporting based on NACE sector. Since 2019, the figure for “not specified” NACE sector has decreased greatly, going from 2,811 in 2015 to 421 in 2019 and 4 in 2020.

Table 2: Number of Contraventions detected 2015-2020 by Type

Where an employer fails to comply, the inspector can use a range of statutory enforcement measures. These are:

- Fixed Penalty Notice: An employer may be required to pay a fixed amount in respect of breaches of employment law (e.g., €1,500 in relation to failure to provide payslips)

Compliance Notice: These require employers to take specific action to remedy contraventions over a range of employment law and failure to comply with the notice could result in a prosecution

- Prosecution: Employers can be prosecuted in relation to a range of contraventions, including failure to pay statutory national minimum wage rate, employment of foreign nationals without permission to work and failure to keep employment records as prescribed in law.