Ireland’s body of employment rights legislation protects all employees legally employed on an employer-employee basis in Ireland, regardless of the designation/job description given to them. Therefore, once it is clear that a person is working under a contract of employment, on a full-time or part-time basis, that person has the same protection under employment law as other employees.
Section 2 of the National Minimum Wage Act provides that a “contract of employment’ means-
(a) a contract of service or apprenticeship, or
(b) any other contract whereby an individual agrees with another person to do or perform personally any work or service for that person or a third person (whether or not the third person is a party to the contract), whether the contract is express or implied and, if express, whether or not it is in writing.
Any person with such a contract is entitled to be paid the appropriate national minimum hourly rate of pay.
Complaints received by the National Employment Rights Authority which concern employment status are initially examined using the provisions of the ‘Code of Practice Determining the Employment or Self-Employment Status of Individuals ’. A copy of this code is available for download from –
www.revenue.ie/en/tax/rct/determining-the-correct-employment-status-of-a-worker .
In circumstances where an individual’s employment status cannot be clarified, or is disputed, the employer or employee in dispute can make a request in writing for a ruling to the Scope section (Insurability of Employment), Deptartment of Social Protection, Oisín House, Pearse Street, Dublin 2. The telephone number is 01 673 2585. Information is also available on that Departments website, www.welfare.ie. Misleading advertisements affecting traders (defined as persons acting for purposes relating to the person's trade, business or profession) are regulated by the European Communities (Misleading and Comparative Marketing Communications) Regulations 2007 (S.I. No. 774 of 2007). These Regulations do not provide for any public enforcement role. It would instead be a matter for the trader affected by the misleading advertising to apply to the courts for an order to prohibit the advertisement.
