Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

The redundancy payment scheme, which is administered by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment on behalf of the Department of Social and Family Affairs, makes payments in respect of eligible employees who qualify for statutory redundancy entitlement. Redundancy payments are paid from the social insurance fund. Under the scheme, all eligible employees are entitled to a statutory redundancy lump sum payment on being made redundant. Generally, a redundancy situation arises when an employee's job no longer exists and he or she is not replaced. To qualify for redundancy, the employee must have at least two years, or 104 weeks, of continuous service; the employee must be in employment which is insurable under the Social Welfare Acts; full-time employees must be in employment which is insurable for all benefits under the Social Welfare Acts but this does not apply to part-time employees; the employee must be 16 years or older; and the employee must have been made redundant as a result of a genuine redundancy situation. The redundancy payment statistics compiled by my Department measure the number of people in employment with a minimum of two years of continuous service, who meet the other criteria I have mentioned in order to obtain redundancy entitlements. By definition, this excludes people in employment who do not qualify under the terms of the redundancy payments.

It should be noted that the live register is not designed to measure unemployment. It includes part-time, seasonal and casual workers who are entitled to unemployment benefit. At the end of October 2009, there were 412,400 people on the live register claiming unemployment benefits, some 7,440, or 1.8%, fewer than in September 2009. The live register is 161,700, or 64.5%, higher than it was this time last year. The year-on-year increase, measured from October 2008 to October 2009, is continuing to decline from a peak of 197,800 recorded in June 2009. The seasonally adjusted figure for October is 422,500, which is a monthly decrease of 3,000 from September. As the Deputy may know, the quarterly household survey that is collated and published by the Central Statistics Office measures employment and unemployment. According to the most recent survey, some 264,600 people were unemployed in the second quarter of 2009, which was an increase of 137,900, or 109%, on the corresponding period in the previous year. The Government continues to support jobs through the enterprise stabilisation and job subsidy schemes. It has doubled the number training and work experience places that are available to over 13,000 this year.

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