Update On Irish Employment Legislation

Protected Disclosures Bill 2021

The Government has recently published the General Scheme of the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill 2021. The Bill aims to complement the existing EU Whistleblowing Directive and enhance the already existing legislation on Protected Disclosures. The Bill proposes to:

• widen the scope of who is covered under the Act – inclusion of volunteers, unpaid trainees, job candidates, shareholders and members of a company’s administration and introduces redress for those not employed directly (job applicants) and award up to €13,000 for those penalised;
• expand the definition of relevant wrongdoing – to include the breach of EU laws in certain areas like financial services etc.;
• expand the definition of “penalisation” – to include psychiatric or medical referral, employment references;
• introduce new report procedures and timeframes for addressing the disclosures;
• new Protected Disclosures office to be established within the office of the Ombudsman (holding office of the Ombudsman in accordance with the Ombudsman Acts 1980 to 2012), who will receive the Protected Disclosures.

As the EU Directive has to be transposed into Irish Law by the 17^th of December 2021, there will be further updates in the coming days. Employers must start putting together a comprehensive Policy to deal with Protected Disclosures in line with the 2018 Act and EU Directive.

More details will be published in our newsletter.  

Signed Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021

The Gender Pay Information Act 2021 (the “Act”) was finally signed into law on the 13^th of July 2021. The Act amends the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2011 and obliges the Minister to make Regulations which will mandate employers to publish information relating to the remuneration of their employees by reference to their gender. There will be further requirements under the Regulations for the employers to publish statements setting out the reasons for the difference (if any) and the measures (if any) undertaken, or proposed to be taken, by those employers to eliminate or reduce such differences. It is proposed that the Regulations will become applicable in a phased basis depending on the size of the organisation.

In preparation for the Regulation, employers must put in place appropriate measures to establish whether there is a gender pay gap within the organisation and if there in fact is any gap in pay because of the gender, detail proposed measures to reduce/eliminate the gap.

A more comprehensive overview of the Act will follow this month.

28^th July 2021

Authors – Chaitra Girish Mallya, Ethna Dillon & Anne O’Connell

Anne O’Connell Solicitors

19-22 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2

www.aocsolicitors.ie

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