Law & Regulation News
The Report includes 17 case studies that illustrate the breadth of the CEA’s impact and demonstrate a considered and graduated approach towards the deployment of enforcement powers. In adopting this approach, the CEA:
- Ensures compliance, and the rectification of non-compliance, with the procedural, governance, and transparency requirements of company law.
- Assists stakeholders in vindicating their rights under company law
- Protects the public through the operation of a restriction and disqualification undertakings regime in respect of directors of insolvent companies.
- Protects the public through robustly testing and challenging applications for relief from director restriction and disqualification, and
- Investigates indications of potentially serious wrongdoing under company law and, as appropriate, takes both civil and criminal enforcement action.
- Published 9 information Books and 5 Information Notes for Stakeholders’ benefit.
- Received over 470 complaints from members of the public, as well as over 300 statutory reports from auditors, examiners, and process advisors.
- Received over 1,000 statutory reports from liquidators in respect of insolvent companies and the behaviour of those companies’ directors.
- Secured the restriction of 80 company directors and the disqualification of a further 27 company directors.
- Secured 107 court orders and 5 search warrants, took 213 witness statements, and effected 12 arrests, and
- Submitted 12 files to the Director of Public Prosecutions and secured criminal convictions in respect of failing to keep proper books of account and providing false information.
Parent’s Leave Benefit is a payment for people in employment who meet the eligibility criteria to allow them to take time off work to care for their child.
- This leave may be taken any time in the first 24 months after they were born.
- Parent’s Leave Benefit leave must be taken in minimum blocks of at least one week.
- These weeks can be combined up to a maximum of seven weeks depending on their circumstances
- You must apply for Parent’s Benefit within six months of taking your Parent’s leave.
From August 2024:
- Parent’s Leave & Benefit will increase from 7 weeks to 9 weeks for children born or adopted after 1 August 2024.
- The additional two weeks of Parent’s Leave applies to children who are under the age of 2 in August 2024, or adoptive children who have been placed with their parents for less than two years in August 2024.
Actions for Organisations to take:
- Update future employment contracts
- Update Organisation handbook and policy documents
- Notify all Employees on update in legislation
The legislation further enhances the protection of employees in a collective redundancy situation following their employer’s insolvency and also provides for the establishment of a new statutory Employment Law Review Group which will advise the Minister on all aspects of employment and redundancy law.
In Ireland, 2022 marked the inaugural year of Gender Pay Gap Reporting. Organisations that had seen a growth in their workforce since the previous year, and surpass the threshold of 250+ Employees, were required to prepare a Gender Pay Gap Report for the first time in 2023 as mandated by the Gender Pay Gap Act 2021.
Companies with 150+ employees are now required to select their snapshot date for Gender Pay Gap Reporting, and these companies must submit their first report by December 2024.