In a press release issued today, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation have trumpeted a reduction in wait times for hearings and an elimination of the previous 142-day waiting period for Rights Commissioner hearings. This comes on the back of ongoing reforms of the Employment Rights bodies.
Minister Richard Bruton was addressing delegates at the IBEC Employment Law Conference, and he outlined some of the results delivered by the process thus far:
- The new single Workplace Relations Customer Service portal is now fully operational. This replaces five separate contact points previously in place.
- A new workplace relations interim website is now in place.
- A Single Complaint Form that deals with over 100 first instance complaints has replaced the 30 forms previously in use. Over 70% of all complainants now use this form. A fully online version of the complaint form will be available later this year
- Complaints are now acknowledged and employers notified, on average, within five working days - prior to the introduction of the single portal this was taking up to eight months.
- Delivery of the pilot Early Resolution Service has commenced
- The backlog for Rights Commissioner hearings has been eliminated. It was 142 days in 2010.
In his address the Minister also outlined the next steps in the process:
- The next major step in this reform programme is to establish a two-tier Workplace Relations structure. This means that from the end of this year two statutorily independent bodies will replace the current five
- The responses to the feedback on the Blueprint document are currently being considered. This will inform the drafting of the legislation, which has already commenced.
We wait anxiously to see what will come from the blueprint document submitted to stakeholders and what this new legislation will look like.
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