The Labour Court is a statutorily independent judicial body but is funded by the Exchequer from funding allocated through the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment and ultimately approved by the Department of Public Expenditure Infrastructure Public Service Reform and Digitalisation.

From this week, this means that the Labour Court will be reduced to one operating division. This unexpected development will have a “severe impact” on the functioning of the court, it said in a statement.

It added: “It will, unfortunately, result in serious delays to the hearing of individual employment rights cases. It will also impact the Labour Court’s industrial relations role as an independent tribunal that investigates disputes of an individual and collective nature and its role in the regulation of the conditions of employment of certain workers.

“A significant number of cases which are part-heard will have to be re-heard in full afresh. The Labour Court is now commencing the process of identifying those cases. The Labour Court will write to representative bodies and service users in the coming days to set out how users will be impacted in the immediate term. 

“The Labour Court sincerely regrets the disruption and delay that this unforeseen communication has caused.”