Relevant circulars may be downloaded from the Government Circulars website.
National Employment Rights Authority
NERA provides information to employees and employers, monitors employment conditions through its inspection services and can enforce compliance and seek redress.
NERA covers many aspects of employment rights including Wages, Holidays and Public Holidays (OWT Act 1997), Working Hours, Redundancy, Dismissal and Notice.
Details on all of the above can be found at the Workplace Relations website.
Fixed-Term Workers
The Protection of Employees (Fixed Term Work) Act 2003 protects fixed-term employees by ensuring that they cannot be treated less favourably than comparable permanent workers and that employers cannot continually renew fixed term contracts. Under the Act employees can only work on one or more fixed term contracts for a continuous period of four years. After this the employee is considered to have a contract of indefinite duration (e.g. a permanent contract).
Part-Time Workers
The Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act, 2001 aims to improve the quality of part-time work and to guarantee that part-time workers may not be treated less favourably than full-time workers.
Equality
The Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000 as amended by the Equality Act 2004 outlaws discrimination in employment on the grounds of gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race and membership of the Traveller community. The Employment Equality Act 1998 also prohibits sexual and other harassment.
The Disability Act 2005 sets out rights for people with disabilities and places a number of obligations on public bodies including Government Departments and semi-state bodies, as well as most other State organisations.
Additional information is available on The Equality Authority, Equality Tribunal and Department of Finance websites.
>back to top
Other Legislation
>back to top