The 5 day statement of terms of employment: it is no longer five terms

An Irish employer must give every new employee a written statement of certain terms within five days of the employment starting, under section 3(1A) of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994. It is still widely called "the five core terms". It has not been five terms since 16 December 2022. Section 3(1A) now contains eleven particulars, and a statement built from a 2019 template is missing six of them.

What changed

The European Union (Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions) Regulations 2022 (S.I. No. 686 of 2022) did two things at once. Regulation 5(a)(ii) deleted most of the old one-month list in section 3(1), and regulation 5(b)(iii) inserted paragraphs (g) to (k) into the five-day list. The Payment of Wages (Amendment) (Tips and Gratuities) Act 2022 had already added paragraph (f). The effect is that the day-5 statement absorbed the substance of the one-month statement, and the one-month statement is now the shorter of the two.

The eleven particulars, in the order the Act sets them out

1. (a) The full names of the employer and the employee.
2. (b) The address of the employer in the State, or the principal place of the relevant business, or the registered office within the meaning of the Companies Act 2014.
3. (c) For a temporary contract, the expected duration; for a fixed-term contract, the date it expires.
4. (d) The remuneration — the initial basic amount, any other component elements indicated separately, the frequency and method of payment, and the pay reference period for the National Minimum Wage Act 2000.
5. (e) The hours the employer reasonably expects the employee to work per normal working day and per normal working week.
6. (f) Where sections 4B to 4E of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 apply, the employer's policy on how tips, gratuities and mandatory charges are treated.
7. (g) The place of work — or, where there is no fixed or main place of work, an express statement that the employee works at various places or is free to determine where.
8. (h) Either the title, grade, nature or category of the work, or a brief description of it.
9. (i) The date of commencement of the contract.
10. (j) Any terms or conditions relating to hours of work, including overtime.
11. (k) Where a probationary period applies, its duration and its conditions.

Paragraphs (g) to (k) are the ones people miss. Note in particular that (k) requires the conditions of probation and not merely its length, and that (g) requires you to say expressly that there is no fixed place of work — a blank is not compliance.

The deadlines and the penalties do not line up

This is where most advice goes wrong. There are two different clocks and a third, criminal one.

• Five days — section 3(1A). The civil obligation.
• One month — section 3(1). The remaining particulars: paid leave, sick pay and pensions, notice, collective agreements, training entitlement, agency user undertakings, unpredictable work patterns and social security.
• One month, again — section 6B(1), inserted by section 10 of the Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2018, makes it an offence for an employer, without reasonable cause, to fail to provide the section 3(1A) statement within one month. Not within five days. The penalty on summary conviction is a class A fine of up to €5,000 or twelve months' imprisonment, or both, and section 6B(4) extends liability to a consenting or conniving director, manager or secretary.

There is a matching quirk on the civil side. Under section 7(1A)(a) an employee cannot present a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission about the section 3(1A) statement until they have more than one month's continuous service. So missing day five by a week is a breach with, for that month, no forum and no offence. Missing it by five weeks is a prosecutable offence. Compensation under section 7(2)(d) is capped at four weeks' remuneration.

The exception in the neighbouring subsection

Section 2(1) provides that the Act, other than section 3(1A), does not apply where the employee has been in continuous service for less than four consecutive weeks. Read that carefully: the day-5 statement is owed to everybody from day one, including someone who lasts a fortnight. The one-month statement is not owed at all to someone who leaves inside four weeks — unless section 2(5) applies, which removes the exemption entirely where no guaranteed amount of remunerated work was predetermined before the employment started. Casual and if-and-when arrangements get no benefit from it.

Section 3(2) closes the last gap: the statement must be given even where the employment ends before the period for giving it has expired.

Form: signed, dated, and provable

Section 3(4) and section 3A(a) require the statement to be signed and dated by or on behalf of the employer. An unsigned statement is not compliant, however complete it is. Section 3A(c) permits electronic delivery only where the information is accessible to the employee, can be stored and printed, and the employer retains proof of transmission or receipt. Section 3(5) requires a copy to be kept for the whole of the employment and for one year after it ends.

Section 3(1B) is the only forgiveness in the Act: an error or omission in the section 3(1A) statement is treated as compliant if it was a clerical mistake or was otherwise made accidentally and in good faith. It does not excuse lateness.

Changes must be notified by the day they take effect

Regulation 8 of S.I. No. 686 of 2022 substituted section 5(1)(a). Notification of a change in any of the particulars is now due not later than the day on which the change takes effect. It used to be one month, and most handbooks still say one month. Section 5(2) exempts changes in statutes and instruments — but expressly not a change in a registered employment agreement or employment regulation order.

Our statement of terms of employment produces both parts in one signed document, and blocks a probationary period that section 6D does not permit.