BEERG Newsletter - Ireland: Significant collective redundancies decision

With a significant number of tech firm announcing job cuts in Ireland in recent months, a decision from an Adjudication Office (AO) the Workplace Relations Commission on collective redundancies in Debenhams, the British-owned retail chain, which closed all its Irish operations in 2020 with the loss of about 1,000 jobs, will make for interesting reading. 

While the full text of the judgement is not yet available, Laura Ensor from Lewis Silkin’s Dublin office has the details. Bottom line: the WRC awarded the worker taking the complaint, a test case of behalf of about 800 others, 8 weeks’ pay, 4 weeks for the company’s failure to provide all relevant information, and four weeks’ pay for its failure to consult properly, i.e., to explore with the employees’ representatives alternatives to the proposed redundancies. The decision can be appealed to the Labour Court. 

We will comment further on this decision in a future edition. In the meantime you can read Laura’s article HERE. You can read the full decision HERE.