Geraldine Rafferty, Secretary, Ronnie Neville, Chair and Susan Battye, Vice-Chair

The Employment and Equality Law Committee has provided a strong voice in policy debate to inform decision-making.

The committee continued to keep under review the experiences of practitioners before the Workplace Relations Committee (WRC) during this period. As with last year, a stakeholder meeting was again held with senior representatives from the WRC in August 2025, including the director general Audrey Cahill and director of adjudication services Fiona O’Dea. This was a positive and productive meeting where the committee put forward issues identified by practitioners in their engagements with the adjudication and administrative sections of the WRC. The WRC also updated the committee and wider membership on upcoming developments in the area. An open line of communication was further strengthened to enable the continuation of discussions on any issues that arise.

The committee worked with the Policy Department in drafting a response to the Public Consultation on the EUPlatform Workers Directive by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment in November 2025.

Committee members, together with invited guest speakers, presented the annual Employment Law webinar, also in November 2025. It shared insights and awareness on employment-law practice and opportunities, demonstrating how this area of law is relevant to all practitioners. The webinar’s objective was to support the wider membership in upskilling on key employment-law workstreams, including dismissals, redundancy, discrimination, work-related stress (PI claims), and settlement agreements.