Irish Employment Law In Brief: February 2023

This month’s 'In Brief' brings together a range of resources and articles that we’ve found interesting over the past month. We survived blue Monday; temperatures dropping below zero and new employment laws coming thick and fast this New Year….at least we have a new public holiday to enjoy! We’ve highlighted below the key themes, to help you keep up to date with all the developments.

Transparent & Predictable Working Conditions

The European Union (Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions) Regulations 2022 became law on 16 December 2022 without much attention. However, in spite of the fact that many of the provisions were already part of the Irish employment law framework, it contains some important obligations for employers and employees around terms and conditions of employment.  Employers will now need to review their contractual provisions to ensure that they are compliant.

To learn more about the changes, Patrick Walshe gives us a comprehensive overview. We couldn't keep up with all the questions raised during The HR Suite's latest free webinar with us, but you can catch up on the recording here. Ciara O'Kennedy, who covered the topic at our Annual Review when it was still just a twinkle in the Government's eye provides more clarification on the Regulations in her article.

Remote / Flexible / Hybrid Working

In other updates, Jennifer Cashman of RDJ answers your questions in her Annual Review follow-up. She addresses changes coming up in Irish employment law in 2023 areas such as remote and flexible working.

A survey from HR software platform HRLocker has found four out of five hybrid workers feel unsupported in their jobs as a result of "passive management". It reveals that 62% of employees feel that their managers did not listen to them and failed to provide adequate feedback to enable them to perform effectively in their jobs. For more on this topic, join Michelle Halloran from Halloran HR Resolutions Ltd for our 2-half day course on Productivity in a Blended/Hybrid Working Environment on 21st and 22nd of March where Michelle outlines how employers can maximise employee productivity by careful planning and management of blended/hybrid working arrangements.

Gender Pay Gap Figures Release – What Have We Learned?

Reports of GPG have made interesting reading in January 2023. What do An Post, Pennys, Stripe and the Department of Justice all have in common? They all reported a gender pay gap of zero or near-zero per cent. Currys, Irish Rail, Musgraves and Kerry County Council posted negative gender pay gaps where women are paid more than men. There is still a significant number of firms that have gender pay gaps above the Irish average of 11.3%, including RTÉ which reported a gender pay gap of 13% in favour of men. Irish Legal News analysed data from Ireland’s six largest law firms by solicitor numbers where we see women at Ireland’s largest law firms are earning up to 61% less than their male colleagues, figures released under Ireland’s gender pay gap reporting law suggest.

Data Breaches

Ireland topped a league table of EU countries with aggregate data breach fines imposed to date totalling more than €1 billion.

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced in January the conclusion of two inquiries into the data processing operations of Meta Ireland in connection with the delivery of its Facebook and Instagram services.

If you're concerned about data protection in a hybrid working environment, you can learn more about our 'Protecting Data in a Hybrid World' eLearning and avail of a free demo here

Employer’s ESG Obligations

All employers in Ireland have ESG (environment, social and governance) obligations but it seems only 17% know what these obligations are and have no concerns about implementing them. That’s according to The Employer's Guide to ESG which surveyed over 400 employers and over 1,000 employees in Ireland.

For an introduction to ESG, what it is and why it is important, check out Legal Island's article here. Legal Island’s ESG in the Workplace eLearning course is tailored specifically to the Irish workplace. You can access a free demo here.

Teacher Enoch Burke dismissed from his teaching post

Teacher Enoch Burke was dismissed from his position at Wilson's Hospital School in Co Westmeath. Mr Burke was jailed in early September after breaching a High Court injunction directing him to stay away from the school. He had been suspended on full pay by the school as part of a disciplinary process, following a row over a request from a student to be addressed by a new name and for "they/them" pronouns to be used. Mr Burke is being fined for contempt of court, after he continued to attend his former workplace despite his dismissal. He claims he is being fined over the expression of his religious beliefs.

Remember our Irish case law reviews are now held in our case law section on our fully-searchable Employment Law Hub website. These and many other stories can be found here on the Legal Island hub.