Minister for Labour Affairs and for Public Service Transformation Dara Calleary TD has launched a series of roadshows by the National Employment Rights Authority (NERA ) in Ballina this week.
The event is the first in a series of roadshows scheduled to take place this year around the country. The roadshows have been organised to provide information on employment legislation and how to be compliant, to employers, employees, and accountancy firms around Ireland.
The roadshows are aimed at assisting employers to familiarise themselves with key items of employment law (including minimum wage rates, record keeping, holiday entitlements, working hours, payslips and redundancy ) and also allowing employees the opportunity to discuss, on a confidential basis, any employment legislation queries that they may have.
“Given the challenging nature of the times, it is more important than ever that business be allowed to operate on a level playing field,” Minister Calleary said at the launch. “Unscrupulous operators should not be able to gain an unfair competitive advantage, particularly by not meeting their legal obligations in the employment area. By ensuring that employers and employees are aware of what employment law in Ireland and, when necessary, ensuring that the law is enforced, NERA helps to secure that level playing field.”
Director of NERA, Ger Deering, said, “NERA rightly places an emphasis on inspection and enforcement activity but we also realise that a huge part of our role is to provide information to employers to help them become compliant. We don’t exist to catch people out, rather to ensure that everyone plays by the same rules. The roadshows will help us meet this aim and we are looking forward to getting out and about and answering people’s questions.”
