Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 31 January 2017
741. Deputy Mary Butler asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the reason it is taking up to eight months for persons to have their cases scheduled for hearings under the Equality and Redundancy Acts by the Workplace Relations Commission; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3847/17]
View answerThe Deputy should note that the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) is independent in the exercise of its quasi-judicial function and I have no direct involvement in its day to day operations or adjudication function.
Notwithstanding this, I am informed that the establishment of the WRC has significantly reduced the delays in the hearing of cases in some bodies that it replaced.
Specifically, in relation to complaints under equality legislation, I understand that during 2016 the WRC received 1,537 specific complaints under equality legislation. Of these approximately 25% have been scheduled and the average period between date of receipt of the complaint and the first hearing date is approximately 25 weeks.
The remaining complaints received in 2016 include a number of multiple complainants against single respondents. These complaints are "on hold" at the request of the parties for a variety of reasons, including the availability of the parties/witnesses, requests from parties or their representatives for the hearing not to proceed for myriad reasons including ill health, unavailability of a key witness, settlement talks etc. While these scenarios are outside the control of the WRC, they naturally impact on timelines for hearings.
Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that the ability of the Commission to schedule cases is influenced by a number of factors; the completeness of the information on the initial complaint form; the need to seek statements in equality/unfair dismissal cases and the availability of Adjudicators.
Complaints under equality legislation are, in general, complex matters, where the facts surrounding the complaint can be quite sensitive and often disputed.
Consequently, parties are required to furnish comprehensive details of the issues in dispute, in advance of the hearing. This enables each party and the Adjudicating Officer, to have prior notice of the arguments which the other side will be relying upon. Moreover, there may be significant aspects of law at issue. Affording the parties adequate time to address these matters at the outset facilitates the efficient conduct and smooth hearing of the matter later on.
The Deputy may be interested to know that in feedback received by the WRC as part of its stakeholder engagement, there was a strong view that both equality and unfair dismissal cases may actually require a longer lead in time for scheduling.
The situation under the redundancy legislation is that the Commission received 722 specific complaints in 2016, of which approximately 50% have already been scheduled. The average period between the date of receipt of the complaint and the first hearing date is just under 19 weeks. A considerable number of the remaining complaints are linked to complaints under other employment rights statutes, including linked claims for unfair dismissal. These linkages impact on the scheduling period, and similar to the situation under the equality legislation, external requests for more time are also a delaying factor.
I can assure the Deputy that the WRC is doing everything within its control to ensure that cases are brought on for hearing without undue delay. However, the Commission is always mindful that parties must have sufficient time to prepare for cases bearing in mind the often sensitive nature of the cases.
Should the Deputy have details of a particular complaint which has been lodged for eight months and has not yet been scheduled for hearing, she might contact the Commission's Director of Adjudication so that the matter can be investigated.
