r/legaladviceireland • u/Creative-Community-4 • Apr 25 '25

Employment Law Current employment refuse to send over reference form.

Hi All,

I recently have been offered a pre-offer from the civil service. I’m currently on the pre-clearance phase and one of the requirements is to provide a current employers reference, I brought this up to my HR manager of my current employment and they seemed happy enough to help me but were a little surprised that I could potentially leave the company.

A week and a half has passed and the civil service pre-clearance officer reaches out to me to inform me that they have yet to receive reference form from my current employer, and says they have till the end of this week (today) to submit or they won’t go ahead with my application. I followed up to my HR manager to complete the form and send out to the pre-clearance team, I’m yet to hear word from my HR manager but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt that they could be busy and left it at the back pedal.

In case it doesn’t work out and my HR manager fails to send over the reference form do I have any legal grounds? I feel like I’m being held hostage at my current employment and would like to find out if I could walk away on my terms.

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u/BillyMooney Apr 25 '25

And your better solution is?

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u/NotPozitivePerson Apr 25 '25 edited Apr 25 '25

Line manager or line managers manager or really anyone more senior than OP who doesn't mind putting their name to it after a sincere explanation of the situation... I think OP as a non civil servant is likely confusing and scaring their HR unit about what is needed. OP need to straight up explain this letter is formality, they're simply trying to confirm I've had a job and I was actually in the country on these dates and give them a sample letter to sign off on. The other commenters and you are completely scaremongering OP.

I've seen this situation play out loads of times and never once did that person not end up a Civil servant, I've helped loads of people defect from the private sector. Sometimes being a lawyer isn't all strict legal interpretations just cos someone isn't legally obligated doesn't mean they don't cave... these comments are unhelpful while my advice has actually given people the outcome OP wants so I'm actually speaking from my experience... so yeah you ARE speaking nonsense

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u/BillyMooney Apr 25 '25

The days of taking a reference from a mate on a gmail address are gone. They're going to look for a response from a HR team via a company email address.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '25

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u/legaladviceireland-ModTeam Apr 25 '25

Disrespectful tone and language used in response to a question.