Security workers: the Employment Regulation Order, your PSA licence and hours

The security industry has had a legally binding minimum rate above the national minimum wage for most of the last two decades, set by an Employment Regulation Order made on the proposal of the Security Industry Joint Labour Committee. The order covers security operatives employed by security firms: static guarding, patrols, door supervision, event security and related work. If you work in the sector, the order's rate is your floor, not the minimum wage, and its overtime rates, allowances and sick pay scheme are part of your contract whether or not the contract mentions them. This guide explains the order, the licence you need to hold, the working-time rules that apply to security in particular, and how to enforce the order.

What an employment regulation order is

A Joint Labour Committee is a body set up by the Labour Court with equal numbers of employer and worker representatives for a sector. It proposes minimum rates and conditions; the Labour Court considers the proposal and, if it adopts it, submits it to the Minister; the Minister makes the order as a statutory instrument. From the commencement date the order's terms are implied into every contract in the sector, and a term in a contract that is less favourable is void to that extent.

The security order was one of those caught by the 2011 High Court decision that struck down the JLC system, and the system was rebuilt by the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2012 with a new order for security in 2017 and successive orders since. The current order is on the Irish Statute Book and summarised on the WRC's ERO page. A new order replaces the previous one when it is made, so the rate that binds your employer on any pay day is the one in force that day. Any new order is tracked on /changes.

The rate and what goes with it

The order sets a single minimum hourly rate for a security operative, usually with a further increase on a stated later date within the order's life. This site does not reproduce the figure because it cannot be verified against the instrument from here: the rate is the rate in the current order. What can be said is that it is above the national minimum wage, which in 2026 is €14.15 an hour for a worker aged 20 or over, €12.74 at 19, €11.32 at 18 and €9.91 under 18. The minimum wage rates matter only as the floor beneath the floor: an employer in the sector who pays the minimum wage is in breach of the order.

Alongside the rate the order sets:

• Overtime rates for hours beyond the normal week the order defines, and for public holiday work, expressed as a multiple of the hourly rate.
• Unsocial hours and allowances of the kinds the order specifies.
• A sick pay scheme with its own waiting days and duration, which sits alongside the Sick Leave Act 2022's 5 days at 70% capped at €110; the more favourable scheme, taken as a whole, applies.
• Death-in-service cover at the level the order sets.
• The treatment of training time, uniforms and the licence, where the order addresses them.

Read the current order for each of these. If your payslip shows the hourly rate but no overtime premium for a week of 50 hours, or no public holiday premium for a shift on 17 March, the order is the first thing to check.

The PSA licence

The Private Security Authority licenses both security firms and individual operatives under the Private Security Services Acts 2004 to 2021. For the licensed sectors (security guarding, door supervision, event security, cash in transit and others the Authority lists) it is an offence to work without an individual licence and an offence for an employer to employ an unlicensed person. You need a recognised training qualification to apply, and the licence is renewed at intervals.

The licence belongs to you. An employer cannot keep it, cancel it or stop you taking it to another firm. Whether the employer pays or reimburses the fee is a matter for your contract and, where the order addresses it, the order. A deduction from your pay for the licence or for training is lawful only if your contract provides for it and it is fair and reasonable, or you agreed it in writing in advance; otherwise it may be an unlawful deduction under the Payment of Wages Act 1991. Garda vetting is part of the licence process and is handled through the Authority, not your employer.

Hours, rest and the six-month reference period

The Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 limits the working week to an average of 48 hours. For most workers the average is taken over four months. Security is one of the sectors listed in the Act for which the reference period is six months, which allows heavier rostering in some months provided the six-month average is kept. A collective agreement approved by the Labour Court can extend the period to twelve months.

The rest rules are not averaged. You are entitled to 11 consecutive hours' rest in every 24, a 24-hour rest period in every seven days (which should normally follow a daily rest period), a 15-minute break after 4.5 hours and 30 minutes after 6 hours. A 12-hour shift is lawful if those are kept. Where the nature of the work means a break cannot be taken, for example a lone guard who cannot leave a post, the employer must give compensatory rest. Breaks are unpaid unless your contract or the order says otherwise. Night workers (at least three hours between midnight and 7 am on most shifts) have an eight-hour average limit and are entitled to a health assessment before starting night work.

Sunday work must be recognised by a premium, an allowance, time off or a higher rate, unless your pay already takes Sunday into account; in security the order's allowance structure usually does this, and the contract should say so. The ten public holidays in 2026 are 1 January, 2 February, 17 March, 6 April, 4 May, 1 June, 3 August, 26 October, 25 December and 26 December; if you work one, the order's premium applies, and if you are not rostered you are owed one fifth of a week's pay.

The employer must keep records of your hours and rest. Many disputes in security turn on whether the employer can produce them; if it cannot, the WRC can expect the employer to disprove your account. Keep your own note of every shift. The working hours guide covers the Act in detail.

Contracts, zero hours and banded hours

Security employers often use "if and when" rostering. A zero-hours contract that requires you to be available but guarantees no hours is banned by the 2018 Act except for genuinely casual work, emergency cover or short-term relief; if you are called in and sent home, or given fewer hours than your contract names, you are owed the lesser of three hours or 25% of the contract hours. After twelve months you can ask in writing to be placed in a band of hours matching what you actually worked over the previous year, and the employer has four weeks to answer and limited grounds to refuse. Your core terms must be in writing within 5 days and the rest within 1 month; the contract checker lists them.

When a security contract moves from one firm to another, your position depends on whether an economic entity transferred: the contract cleaning page explains how the transfer regulations work in a labour-intensive sector, and the same analysis applies to security.

Enforcing the order at the WRC

Being paid below the order, or without its premiums, is a contravention of the Industrial Relations Acts and an unlawful deduction of the amount properly payable under the Payment of Wages Act 1991. The complaint is made online to the WRC within six months of each pay day, with no fee; the adjudicator can extend to twelve months for reasonable cause. The WRC can order the arrears and, for the ERO breach, compensation. WRC inspectors also enforce EROs directly and can inspect an employer's records without naming the worker who prompted the inspection.

Write first: set out your hours, the rate paid, the rate in the order and the shortfall, and ask for it. Keep the letter and the reply. Dismissal for raising the order is dismissal for exercising a statutory right, which needs no minimum service for an unfair dismissal claim; penalisation for a complaint is itself a contravention. The deadline checker gives you the date for each pay day and the case file keeps the shifts and the figures in one place.

Union

SIPTU represents security operatives and sits on the Security Industry Joint Labour Committee that proposes each order, so it knows the current rates and the order's detail. Membership brings representation at the WRC at no charge. See which union covers you.

Where this leaves you

Your floor in security is the rate in the current Employment Regulation Order, with its overtime and public holiday premiums, allowances and sick pay scheme, and not the national minimum wage beneath it. The minimum wage checker gives you the statutory rate for your age and the shortfall over any period against it; take the order's figure from the instrument on the Irish Statute Book or the WRC's ERO page and apply the same arithmetic to your hours. If you are below it, write to the employer, then make a WRC complaint within six months of each pay day. Construction and contract cleaning have similar floors under their own orders.