The purpose of this chapter is to explore the role of the state in the regulation of precarious work, more specifically zero-hour work in Ireland. Zero-hour work is characterized by the non-guarantee of working hours; workers may or may not be required to be available for work, and their working hours are likely to be variable. Zero-hour work is precarious because its outcomes, in the main, include low pay, job insecurity, and very limited social and employment rights protection. Budd outlines that work and employment are very complicated subjects and stresses the need for a multidisciplinary approach to the many themes within the field, with precarious work being one of those themes. Precarious work has been a key interest within the field of industrial and organizational (I/O) psychology and has been explored through such lenses as employee wellbeing and job design. However, Allan et al., whilst acknowledging the contribution of I/O psychology to the study of precarious work, call for greater interdisciplinary research adding that other fields have ¿important perspectives and expertise¿that can complement and extend work and organizational psychology¿ (p. 9). Advocating for a similar multidisciplinary approach, Troth and Guest acknowledge the need for I/O psychologists to pay more attention to the external institutional contexts that can influence human resource activities. This chapter addresses that gap by exploring precarious work through an employment relations (ER) lens that draws attention to issues such as workers¿ collective action (mainly through trade unions) and public policies and institutions. Our focus is particularly on the role of the state. Martínez Lucio and MacKenzie outline that the state is critical to the public regulation and control of the contractual bases of ER. Yet there is general agreement within the extant literature that there has been a paucity of attention on the role of the state within ER, with some notable exceptions, including Hyman, Meardi, and Martínez Lucio and MacKenzie. Kalleberg notes the relations between ¿the state and markets are central to explanations of differences among employment relations, and hence to variations in the experience of precarious work¿ (p. 243).