Department of Social Protection will become Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

Following a Government decision, as of Friday 1st September 2017, this Department will take on some of the work currently carried out by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.

The Department’s name will change to the “Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection” and this will take effect from Saturday 2nd September 2017. The name in Irish will be “An Roinn Gnóthai Fostaíochta agus Coimirce Sóisialaí.”

The Department’s new logo which will be in use from 2nd September 2017:

Our new functions are largely concerned with Employment Policy and Labour Law at national level, EU, and international level.

From 2nd September, the Department’s new name will appear on Welfare.ie and will be used in all communications from that date.

While a number of our buildings will require a change to their signage, it is not proposed to make any changes to the INTREO office signs at this time.

The Department’s current stationery including information leaflets and application forms will continue to be used and will only be changed over to newly branded items once existing stocks are used up.

The Department’s email address format is unchanged – firstname.surname@welfare.ie

The Department is not yet in a position to provide details of the final cost of rebranding at present. However, we expect it to be relatively minor.

Functions transferring from Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

At a national level, the following employment policy and legislative functions will transfer:

• lead on Employment Rights Policy and Legislation. This covers responsibility for eleven primary Acts governing employment rights in Ireland and related policy issues
• lead on the Low Pay Commission, established to make recommendations annually to the Minister on the appropriate level of the National Minimum wage and related areas
• lead on legislation in relation to the national minimum wage and related areas. This entails the transfer of Ministerial responsibility for the national minimum wage under the NMW Act 2000 and the Minimum Wage (Low Pay Commission) Act 2015

At EU/International level, the following employment policy functions will transfer:

• lead role and co-ordination of the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) Council
• lead responsibility for the Treaty based Employment Committee (EMCO) and the EU Semester process
• lead responsibility for Ireland’s response and input on the EU Pillar of Social Rights
• lead responsibility for Ireland’s engagement with Eurofound, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions
• lead responsibility for the Council of Europe Social Charter and co-ordination of responses on the Social Charter

ENDS