Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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We move on to the next item on the agenda. We are commencing pre-legislative scrutiny of the redundancy payments (amendment) Bill 2021. The Bill will provide for the making of a State-funded payment to employees facing redundancy of lost opportunity accrual for reckonable service due to lay-offs caused by the Covid-19 restrictions since last year. As things stand, employees who have been laid off due to the Covid-19 restrictions will not have this period counted towards reckonable service where they have already been made redundant or are made redundant within the next three years. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is collaborating with the Department of Social Protection on this matter. The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, has asked the committee to give this urgent consideration and to carry out pre-legislative scrutiny of the matter. I thank members for allowing us to facilitate this as fast as we could. To discuss the matter, I would like to welcome, from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Dara Breathnach and I invite her to make the Department's opening statement on the Bill, which will be circulated to members.