Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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64. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of Workplace Relations Commission cases taken in County Cork in 2020 and to date in 2021, by year in tabular form. [34268/21]

Damien English (Meath 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.

It is the policy of the Workplace Relations Commission to work with employers in order to achieve compliance and, where relevant, pay any unpaid wages arising from contraventions so that workers achieve their entitlements as a result of our inspection. Prosecution proceedings are initiated in the case of offences under the Employment Permits Acts and, in the case of offences under employment legislation, where the employer has failed to respond to the Inspectors intervention, failed to comply with a compliance notice or a fixed payment notice and/or failed to achieve compliance by granting workers their entitlements. In 2020, across all regions, prosecution proceedings were required to be initiated in less than 2% of cases in which contraventions were detected.

I understand from clarification provided by the Deputy that the information sought relates to the number of prosecutions initiated by the WRC Inspectorate in Cork in 2020 and to date in 2021. The information sought by the Deputy is set out in the following table.