Updated - 5 July 2024
The Protection of Employment Acts 1977 – 2024 make it mandatory for employers proposing a collective redundancy:
a. to engage in an information and consultation process with employees’ representatives for at least 30 days, and
b. to notify the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment of the proposed collective redundancy.
An employer is prohibited from issuing any notice of redundancy during the information and consultation process with employees’ representatives. Also, an employer cannot make employees redundant until at least 30 days after the Minister has been notified of the proposed collective redundancy.
What is a Collective redundancy?
Collective redundancies are situations where, during any period of 30 consecutive days, the number of redundancies is:
No of proposed redundancies | Employees normally employed |
5 or more | 21 – 49 |
10 or more | 50 – 99 |
10% or more | 100 – 299 |
30 or more | 300 or more |
The number normally employed is calculated as the average number employed in each of the 12 months preceding the date on which the first dismissal takes effect.
Am I protected in a collective redundancy?
The Protection of Employment Acts 1977 – 2024 protect employees during collective redundancies. The Act applies to employees where there are more than 20 employees in an establishment, regardless of their length of service with the employer.
The only employees these protections do not apply to are:
- Employees employed by the State, including local authorities,
- Employees with a fixed-term contract who are dismissed because the expiry date in the fixed-term contract is reached, or because the purpose in the specified purpose contract has been completed or ceases.
What does the consultation with employees’ representatives involve?
Employers must initiate consultations with employees’ representatives at the earliest opportunity and at least 30 days before the first notice of dismissal is given. Employers must engage in the consultation ‘with a view to reaching agreement’.
The employees’ representative can be a trade union, staff association or another body that the employer normally consults with. Otherwise, it can be employee(s) who are elected by a group of employees to act as the representative. The employer must put in place an arrangement to facilitate this election.
The employer must provide the employees’ representatives with all relevant information relating to the proposed redundancies. Relevant information that is required by law includes:
- The reasons for the proposed redundancies,
- The number, and descriptions or categories, of employees whom it is proposed to make redundant,
- The number of employees, and description or categories, normally employed,
- The number of agency workers (if any) engaged by the employer, including what part of the business they work in and what type of work they do,
- The period during which it is proposed that the redundancies will take place,
- The criteria proposed for the selection of the workers to be made redundant, and
- The method for calculating any redundancy payments over and above those methods set out in the Redundancy Payments Acts.
Copies of all information in relation to the above, supplied to the employees’ representatives, must be sent to the Minister ‘as soon as possible’.
What does notifying the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment involve?
Employers are required to notify the Minister of the collective redundancy. The notification should be sent by electronic means, registered post or by hand.
The information required in the collective redundancy notification is set out in S.I. 324 of 2024.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has published a template form that employers can use to help ensure that they provide all information required by law in the notification to the Minister. Access the template Collective Redundancy Notification form (Form CRN1).
The employer must send a copy of this notification to the employees’ representatives.
Collective Redundancies where the employer is insolvent
If your employer is insolvent, you are likely to be made redundant. However, you will still receive the same statutory protections as in any other collective redundancy.
The key difference is that the liquidator or similar appointee (called a “responsible person”) who is managing the wind-up of your employer’s business will undertake the statutory consultation and will notify the Minister, instead of your employer.
Making a Complaint regarding Collective Redundancy issues
You can make a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) if you believe that your employer has:
- Failed to hold consultations with your employee representative(s),
- Failed to provide your employee representative(s) with required information during the consultation, or
- Dismissed you before expiry of the 30-day period following notification to the Minister (if this occurred on/after 1 July 2024)
Complaints must be made within 6 months of the date of the alleged breach. The WRC can extend this time period to 12 months if you can demonstrate reasonable cause.
You can make a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission by completing the Online Complaint Form available on the How to Make a Complaint/Refer a Dispute page on this website.
Where your complaint is upheld by a WRC Adjudication Officer, you may be awarded compensation of up to four weeks’ remuneration for each breach.
Other sanctions for failure to comply with obligations
An employer or a responsible person who contravenes any of the following obligations will be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a Class A fine (currently €5,000):
- Obligation to initiate consultations or to provide information to employees’ representatives
- Obligation to notify the Minister of the proposed collective redundancies
- Obligation to keep records
An employer cannot make employees redundant until at least 30 days after notification of the proposed redundancy has been received by the Minister. An employer who breaches this obligation, if found guilty on indictment, shall be liable to a maximum fine of €250,000.
The WRC may initiate a prosecution for an offence within one year of the date of an alleged offence under the Act.
Copies of the relevant legislation may be viewed or downloaded on the links below -