Mr. Kevin Duffy:

I will respond to the question on proposal No. 6. Our proposal No. 6 seeks to have a mechanism by which workers who had an entitlement to enhanced redundancy payments that they could not pursue, because of a failure on the part of the employer to engage in consultation before the redundancies were given effect, could go to the Workplace Relations Commission in the first instance. The Workplace Relations Commission, or the Labour Court on appeal, could take into account the prejudices that workers suffered, which could include the fact that they did not get the enhanced redundancy payments to which they had a legitimate expectation. That would be an award made under the Protection of Employment Acts, not redundancy payments as such but compensation for the loss of something that workers would otherwise have been able to achieve had the employer complied with the obligations under the Act. As an award of compensation it has priority anyway. Section 49 of the Workplace Relations Act makes reference to section 621 of the Companies Act 2014 so the award has priority anyway.

The second part of our proposal deals with the type of situation to which Deputy Bruton rightly referred where there could be an abuse and the State could end up picking up the tab for moneys that properly should have been paid by the company. Section 4 was to allow the Minister to stand in the shoes, as it were, of the employees, that the moneys paid out would be recoverable along with the relevant provisions of the Companies Act referred to by Ms Cahill and that if the funds were available, the Minister could recover the money paid out. So the State would pay out if there were not sufficient funds in the employer company but the Minister could seek to recover that amount for the benefit of the State. That is the rationale that was at play.