Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Creed for raising this matter on the Adjournment. Without starting a political debate on the issue, the Croke Park agreement is a critical component in the overall restructuring of public services and the delivery of services to the public. At the time, we were criticised quite a lot by some Members opposite for spending too much time engaged in discussions with the unions trying to reach an agreement. That is an aside but it is important to point out that the Croke Park agreement is an integral part of reform of the public services.

Unfortunately, the economic downturn has left employers with little choice other than to radically reorganise and rationalise their business models, unfortunately leading, in the worst case scenario, to making employees redundant.

Fortunately, in the first eight months of this year, there is concrete evidence of a levelling off of redundancy levels. In 2009, the monthly level of redundancy claims lodged with my Department averaged almost 6,500 a month and, to date this has reduced to an average of just under 5,500.

The Department administers the Social Insurance Fund in redundancy matters on behalf of the Department of Social Protection and makes two types of payment from the fund — rebates to those employers who have paid statutory redundancy to eligible employees, and statutory lump sums to employees whose employers are insolvent and/or in receivership or liquidation.

The Department is currently processing redundancy claims including rebates and lump sums dating from February and March of this year so that the waiting time is approximately six or seven months. In some instances, where the necessary supporting documentation for claims is not provided to my Department, or where queries arise, processing of claims can be further delayed until the required documentation is provided and/or outstanding queries are resolved.

The Department has made significant efforts to deliver more acceptable turnaround processing times for redundancy payments given the difficulties that this gives rise to for individual employees and for the business community. Measures already taken in the Department in 2009 to alleviate the pressures on the payments area include: almost doubling the number of staff through reassignment to a current level of 52 full-time equivalents; establishment of a special call-handling facility in NERA to deal with the huge volume of telephone calls from individuals and businesses concerned about their payments; better quality information relating to current processing times on the Department's website; and engagement with the Revenue Commissioners to facilitate the offset of redundancy rebate payments by employers against existing outstanding tax liabilities which those employers owe to the Revenue Commissioners.

I was there for a period as Minister of State with responsibility for labour affairs. It is the Minister of State with responsibility for labour affairs who is statutorily functionally responsible for the redundancy section. This was something that was becoming very evident, and we started to move resources and tried to put in place mechanisms that would facilitate and expedite payments.

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