January-14-2014 in Employment Law
Further to our recent article on the publication of the Protected Disclosures Bill 2013, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Mr Brendan Howlin T.D., has introduced an amendment to the Bill.
An employee who lodges a claim for unfair dismissal, on the basis that they were dismissed by their employer for having made a protected disclosure, may apply for interim relief before the Circuit Court due to the fact that there is likely to be a substantial delay between lodging a claim and the unfair dismissal’s hearing taking place.
At present, a claim under the Unfair Dismissals legislation can take up to a period of approximately two years before it is allocated a date for hearing. If the Circuit Court finds that it is likely that the employee’s dismissal resulted wholly or partly from making a protected disclosure, the employer will be asked to re-instate or re-engage the employee pending the hearing of the unfair dismissal’s claim.
The basis for this amendment to the Bill stems from international best practice to provide further protection for workers who are whistleblowers.
For further information please contact the Employment Law team at Hayes.
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