A claim being brought by an employee under a piece of employment legislation or to the courts will generally be subject to a time limit. A claim brought outside the relevant time limit is said to be ‘statute barred’ so that regardless of the merits of the claim, it will not be considered.

The general time limit to bring a claim under Irish employment legislation is six months but a claimant could apply to have that time period extended in many (though not all) cases.

Up to now, however, there has been a lack of consistency in both the length of the potential extension and the circumstances that will trigger it. For example, under the employment equality legislation, the