Ms Dara Breathnach:

I am happy to confirm that in cases of periods of lay-offs like that, those are not treated as a break in service. They are treated as continuous with previous service. The point of the three-year cut-off, essentially, is that it is only periods of lay-off during the final three years of service which are disregarded for the purposes of the statutory redundancy entitlement. I hope that answers the Senator’s question. The existing law is that such periods of lay-offs are treated as continuous with previous service.