When an employee is called for jury service
If one of your employees is summoned for jury service, they must respond to their summons and be available to attend court.
Your employee may not know at first how long they will be away from work. This depends on whether they are selected for a jury and how long the trial lasts. If they are selected, the judge will tell them what to expect.
What you must do
Keep paying them
You must continue to pay an employee while they are attending jury service.
While your employee is absent from work to comply with a jury summons, they are treated in law as still employed or apprenticed.
Do not penalise them
warning You cannot dismiss or disadvantage an employee for jury service
You cannot dismiss an employee or disadvantage them in any way because they attended for jury service.
You cannot apply to excuse them
If your employee wants to be excused from jury service, they must apply themselves. As their employer, you cannot apply on their behalf.
Another person can only apply on their behalf where the person summoned cannot make the application themselves, for example because of illness or incapacity.
See asking to be excused from jury service for more information.
Proof that your employee attended
After their jury service is over, your employee can get a certificate of attendance. They can give this to you as proof that they attended jury service.
They can:
- ask court staff for a certificate of attendance, or
- access their certificate online if they responded to their jury summons online.
If you get a suspicious message about an employee’s jury service
The Courts Service will never ask you or your employee to pay a fee or fine, or to share bank details, in connection with jury service.
If you receive a message like this, do not make a payment or share any personal or financial information. See responding to your jury summons for information on how to check that a message is genuine.
Contact us
If you have a question about jury service, contact the Jury Service team at juries@courts.ie.
See also jury service and your job for information for employees.
