Insights

On 5 April 2024, the much anticipated Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024 (the “Bill”) was published. Auto-enrolment is a new retirement system for employees that will be introduced in January 2025. It has been set up to provide a retirement plan for people without a work or private pension to save for retirement.

In a recent Circuit Court application, where Kane Tuohy LLP represented the Defendant, O’Connor J delivered Judgment dated 7 March 2024, in which he refused the Plaintiff’s Motion for leave to execute proceedings where the Motion for leave issued outside the 12 years.

Background The parties in this case were HA O’Neil Limited (“the Respondent”) a mechanical engineering firm and Unite the Union and others (“the Appellants”). Unite is a trade union who organises workers in the mechanical engineering industry, and the others party to the case were employees of the Respondent and members of the union. In February 2023, the union, having balloted its members employed by the respondent company, wrote to the Respondent giving notice of industrial action due to take place 10 days later. The proposed industrial action involved strikes on a rolling basis at construction sites where the Respondent was engaged as a sub-contractor. The Respondent brought a High Court application for an interlocutory injunction restraining the Appellants from picketing at these construction sites and sought other ancillary orders. The injunction was granted in March 2023 pending the trial action. The Supreme Court (“the Court”) permitted leave to appeal on the basis that the case raised important issues of law relating to the grant of injunctions in respect of industrial disputes, and in particular, reference to section 19(2) of the Industrial Relations Act 1990 (“the Act”).

The General Scheme of the Employment (Restriction of Certain Mandatory Retirement Ages) Bill 2024 (“the Bill”) has recently been published and seeks to implement a Government commitment, to allow, but not compel, an employee to stay in employment until they can access the State Pension.

The right to request remote working arrangements for all employees and the right to request flexible working arrangements for parents and carers came into operation on 7 March 2024. The Code of Practice for Employers and Employees: Right to Request Flexible Working and Right to Request Remote Working (the “Code”) has now been published by the Workplace Relations Commission (the “WRC”).

In Thomas Doolin v Eir Business Eircom Limited ADJ-00045261 the Complainant, Mr Doolin, brought a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission (the “WRC”) under the Employment Equality Acts claiming that he was discriminated against on the grounds of age.