THE LABOUR COURT ANNUAL REPORT 2024
January 2026In mid-2025, the Labour Court published its annual report for 2024. The report sets out a review of the year in terms of the matters with which the Labour Court dealt throughout 2024. We have set out below a summary of the contents of the report.
Background
The Labour Court has a dual role divided between:
- industrial relations work (those issues coming to the court under the provisions of the Industrial Relations Acts)
- employment rights work (those cases/appeals referred to it under any of the Employment Rights statutes).
The involvement of the court in the industrial relations area is set out in the Industrial Relations Acts 1946-2015, and includes investigations of industrial relations disputes, appeals of adjudication officers’ recommendations (from the WRC), registration of employment agreements, registration of collective agreements, Sectoral Employment Orders (SEOs) and Joint Labour Committees (JLCs)/Employment Regulation Orders (EROs) and codes of practice.
In the area of employment rights, the main work of the court involves acting as the single appellate body for the appeal of Adjudication Officers’ decisions made under employment rights enactments.
Appeals/referrals
The report sets out the work carried out by the Labour Court throughout 2024. The court received 1119 appeals/referrals (a slight decrease from the 1141 referrals/appeals in 2023).
Referrals and appeals under the Industrial Relations Acts accounted for 21% (234) of the total number of referrals/appeals.
Appeals under the employment rights legislation accounted for 79% (885) of the cases coming to the court, an increase of 12% on the previous year.
The ratio of appeals under the employment relations legislation to those under the industrial relations legislation follows the trend that has continued since the passing of the Workplace Relations Act in 2015.
Hearings
1385 hearings were scheduled in 2024. 1% (12 hearings) of these were scheduled in a virtual court room. This was a decrease on the 1513 hearings scheduled in 2023.
- 311 postponements were granted
- 820 cases were completed/decided/settled/withdrawn
- 364 appeal/referrals were ready to be programmed at the end of 2024
Appeals
276 cases were withdrawn. 261 of these related to cases which had been scheduled for hearing.
It is clear from the report that a significant bugbear of the court is cases where postponements or withdrawals are sought at late notice, as this has a significant impact on the capacity of the court to effectively manage its resources in terms of allocation of courtroom hearing time. The report goes on to say that in its experience, a significant proportion of the requests for postpone arise from the representatives of the parties seeking to adjust the court’s schedule to suit their own workload, not due to the availability of the parties themselves.
45 hearings were held in the blended courtroom which allowed some participants to attend the hearings using remote access.
Recommendations/determinations/decisions
The court issued 507 recommendations/determinations/decisions in 2024. The number completed where a recommendation, determination or decision was issued, or the matter was settled by the referring party in 2023, was 199.
Employment rights appeals
The number of employment rights cases received was 885. The number completed was 345, where 239 were withdrawn prior to hearing or scheduling.
Of the 885 employment rights appeals received by the court in 2024, 51.2% were in respect of appeals under: –
- Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977-2015
- Employment Equality Acts, 1998-2021
- Payment of Wages Act, 1991
The report notes that there was a drop in dispute referrals due to COVID-19 in 2020-2021 but these have come back in recent years.
Other activities
The Labour Court was involved in other activities during 2024, such as the Joint Labour Committees (representatives of employers and workers in the relevant sector under an independent chairperson appointed by the Minister).
Sectoral Employment Orders (“SEO”)
Statutory orders for minimum rates of pay, sick leave and pension to apply to workers of a class type or group, including apprentices, in a specific economic sector. A new SEO for the construction sector was signed on 7 November 2024.
Conclusion
It is clear that there was considerable activity in the Labour Court during 2024, both on the employment rights front and industrial relations. Although the statistics seem to indicate that employment rights is the court’s chief area of work at present, it continues to provide an effective forum for the resolution of industrial relations disputes also. Despite the dip in its work during the Covid-19 pandemic, the work of the court has remained steady since then.
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