Recruitment agencies in Ireland are good at one thing: putting a suitable candidate in front of you, fast. For a hotel short of chefs before the summer season, or a factory adding a night shift, that speed matters. Once the candidate says yes, though, the agency's job is mostly done and yours has just started.
In our experience advising employers across Ireland, many WRC complaints from new hires come out of the gap between the agency's placement and the employer's HR process. Contracts go out late. Agency workers are paid less than the staff working next to them. Interview notes from an agency shortlist end up as evidence in a discrimination claim. The agency fee covers finding the person. It does not cover what happens to your compliance after that.
Quick answer: Recruitment agencies in Ireland find and screen candidates, but in most cases the hiring employer is still responsible for contracts, written terms, onboarding, equality in recruitment decisions and, for agency workers, a large share of day-one equal treatment obligations. Employers using agencies regularly need an HR process that picks up where the agency stops. That is the work PurpleTree HR Essentials does for SMEs nationwide.
Where recruitment agencies in Ireland stop and your obligations begin
Agencies usually work in one of two ways. Under a permanent placement, the agency introduces a candidate, you hire them directly and you pay a fee. With a temporary or contract placement, the agency employs and pays the worker, who works under your direction on your premises.
Employers often assume the second model hands them a worker with no HR attached. It does not. Under the second model the paperwork is split, and the employer can still be named in a WRC claim. Under the first model the agency has nothing more to do with the hire once it starts. We regularly meet business owners who are surprised by how much of the risk was never the agency's to carry.
The onboarding clock starts on day one
Once a permanent hire starts, you are on a fixed timeline. Under the Terms of Employment (Information) Acts 1994 to 2014, as amended, employers must give new employees five core terms in writing within five days of starting, and a fuller written statement within one month. The Citizens Information guidance on terms of employment sets out what each must include.
The pressure comes from coordination. The agency has agreed a salary and start date with the candidate, sometimes by phone. Your manager has promised a shift pattern. Payroll needs PPSN details and a Revenue employment registration before the first pay date. If those three versions of the job do not match the written contract, you have a dispute from the first week.
What employers miss
- Offers the agency makes verbally can become part of the agreement if your paperwork does not clearly replace them
- Probation terms, notice periods and banded-hours rights need to be in the contract from the start; adding them later rarely works
- A missed five-day deadline is a standalone complaint the WRC can uphold, even where the employee has no other grievance
Our employment contracts service builds contract templates for each role type, so a new starter gets compliant terms within the deadline whichever agency placed them.
Agency workers have rights that apply from day one
The temporary model carries the most hidden risk. Under the Protection of Employees (Temporary Agency Work) Act 2012, agency workers are generally entitled to the same basic working and employment conditions they would get if you had hired them directly. That covers pay, working time, rest breaks, night work, annual leave and public holidays.
Ireland has no qualifying period for this. Equal treatment applies from the first day of the assignment. The agency usually runs the payroll, so it needs accurate figures from you about what your direct employees earn, including shift premiums, overtime rates and any pay set by a sectoral employment order. If your figures are wrong, the agency worker is underpaid, and a claim can follow.
The hiring employer, which the Act calls the hirer, also has obligations of its own. Agency workers must be told about permanent vacancies and given access to shared facilities such as canteens and transport on the same basis as your employees. For unfair dismissal purposes, an agency worker can in some circumstances be treated as your employee, which surprises many employers who end an assignment without a fair process.
Why this is harder than it looks
A food processing plant or construction site might have agency staff from two or three agencies working alongside its own employees, on four different shift patterns. Keeping pay comparisons accurate across all of them, every time a rate changes, takes ongoing work. Getting this right once is not enough. Our manufacturing and construction clients use agency labour heavily, and auditing these comparisons is a regular part of our work with them.
Recruitment agencies in Ireland do not carry your discrimination risk
Equality law applies before anyone is hired. Under the Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2015, a job applicant who believes they were turned down on one of the nine protected grounds can bring a claim to the Workplace Relations Commission. That applies whether they were rejected at interview or never shortlisted. Where the claimant was never an employee, the WRC can award up to €13,000.
When an agency shortlists, it acts on your instructions. If your brief asked for "young, energetic" candidates or "native English speakers" for a role that does not need it, the risk comes back to you. Interview scoring, notes and the reasons for the final decision all sit with the employer, and the WRC will expect to see them.
Candidate data creates a second risk. CVs, references and interview notes are personal data, so you need a lawful basis to hold them and a set period after which you delete them. Our GDPR support covers recruitment records specifically, because many employers have never set a retention rule for them.
Temp-to-perm conversions and probation
Many agency workers end up on your payroll. When an agency worker moves to direct employment, the questions build up quickly. Does the conversion fee in your agency terms apply? When does probation start? How much weight do the months on assignment carry if the relationship later breaks down?
Probation is limited to six months in most cases. It can go to twelve only in exceptional circumstances, and only where that is in the employee's interest. We cover the common failures in our article on probation period mistakes. For converted agency workers, the risk increases because the employer has already seen the person working and may find it harder to argue that a probation review was genuinely open.
Right to work checks also belong to you. If an agency introduces a candidate from outside the EEA, you need the correct permission in place before they start. Our article on employment permit mistakes covers what tends to go wrong.
How PurpleTree HR closes the gap after the agency hands over
Agencies are paid to fill vacancies. PurpleTree HR is paid to make sure each hire stays compliant, from the first contract to the last day of the job. Through HR Essentials, our team becomes your HR function for the work agencies leave behind:
- Contract templates for each role type, ready the moment a candidate accepts
- An onboarding process that meets the five-day and one-month deadlines every time
- Pay comparison checks for agency workers, so equal treatment holds when your rates change
- A review of the briefs you send agencies and the way you record interview decisions, so they would stand up to WRC scrutiny
- Probation reviews and support when a temp-to-perm conversion is not working out
If a claim does land, our WRC representation team already knows your documents because we helped write them. We also link onboarding to PurpleTree payroll, so new starters are registered with Revenue and paid correctly from their first payslip.
A pattern we see often: a hospitality employer takes on a dozen seasonal staff through two agencies in April, issues contracts in June and has its first WRC complaint by August. Each of those steps could have been prevented with a process in place before the first candidate arrived.
Get your hiring process checked before the next placement
If your business relies on recruitment agencies, the safest time to fix your process is before the next hire starts. Book a free HR Health Check and we will review your contracts, onboarding timelines and agency arrangements. Or talk to our team about how HR Essentials can take this off your desk for good.
This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Employment law is complex and fact-specific. For advice on your specific situation, contact the PurpleTree HR team directly.
Common questions about using recruitment agencies in Ireland
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