Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with my colleagues. I thank the Chair for the opportunity to speak on this important legislation. It involves a short but important piece of work, which we in Sinn Féin will be supporting.

The Redundancy Payments (Amendment) Bill is a specific response to decisions taken at the beginning of the pandemic whereby section 12A of the Redundancy Payments Act was suspended. This was done to protect workers from being made redundant. Employers were also protected in that they would not have a deluge of workers applying for redundancy payments. However, with this decision several technical difficulties arose for workers, specifically workers laid off or on short time, such as those in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment. The Minister of State will know this because he and I have spoken about it on more than one occasion. Some of the workers were concerned that they would not have the fair calculation of reckonable service if they were unfortunate enough to be made redundant, and as a result they were genuinely afraid that they would then lose out on significant sums of money regarding a redundancy claim.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, and the trade union movement in general spotted this very early on in the pandemic. I myself introduced a Bill last March, the Redundancy Payments (Lay off, Short Time and Calculation of Reckonable Service) Bill 2021, the aim of which was similar to that of the Bill before the House, namely, to ensure workers would not lose out on time when it came to the calculation of a redundancy entitlement.

The Bill before us is very welcome. It was dealt with by the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment last year. Many concerns were cleared up by the departmental officials in attendance, whom I thank for their time and patience on the day. I was not at the meeting myself because I was isolating with Covid, but I followed the proceedings online. My colleague, Senator Paul Gavan, had queries answered on the occasion.

The main aim of this Bill is to provide for a once-off redundancy payment to workers in respect of certain lay-off periods during the period beginning on 13 March and ending at the end of September 2021. Under the Redundancy Payments Act, statutory redundancy is based on duration of service and a qualified employee is entitled to two weeks' pay per year of service, plus a bonus week, subject to a cap of €600 in earnings per week, payable by the employer. Under the existing Act, periods of lay-off in the final three years of service do not count as reckonable service, meaning that redundancy entitlements will not factor in those periods. Therefore, that would result in a loss in regard to redundancy payments. Thankfully, that is addressed within the Bill. It ensures affected workers can access a tax-free State payment of up to €1,860, financed by the Social Insurance Fund, to compensate for the break in their service caused by the pandemic and associated public-health restrictions.

There are some additional issues I would like to raise with the Minister of State and that I hope can be addressed in the future. I introduced the Redundancy Payments (Lay off, Short Time and Calculation of Reckonable Service) Bill 2021. This Bill went further than addressing the fair calculation of reckonable service alone; it sought to clarify some workers' rights issues that had arisen. One such issue concerned where an employer tried to hoodwink a worker and have them declare themselves as having resigned, thereby involuntarily forgoing their entitlement to a redundancy payment. I spoke to several workers - many of them women and migrant workers - who outlined how unscrupulous employers tried to con them into making themselves redundant by telling them they could resign, unbeknownst to them against their wishes. This would have resulted in the workers losing out on any redundancy entitlement. Perhaps the Minister of State could look into making it an offence for an employer to treat an employee as having resigned, thereby forgoing his or her redundancy entitlement, where he or she did not mean to resign. It has happened on several occasions that people felt they had no choice but to resign. In fact, it would be a redundancy situation in many instances. The employers were evading their responsibility. I am not referring to all employers and it is not a massive issue, but it is certainly an issue for the people who have contacted me, who are predominantly women and migrant workers,

I want to raise some operational matters with the Minister of State. The scheme cannot be launched until the legislation has made its way through the Houses of the Oireachtas. I am aware that the Department of Social Protection will deliver the scheme. It is establishing the necessary application system. Has the relevant information technology work been concluded? Will the system be ready to go live soon? Could we be given a date for when it is expected to go live? I ask because several workers who have been in contact with me are very anxious to know when it will happen, as the Minister of State can imagine.

As I have said throughout, I will work with the Minister to get this legislation over the line as efficiently and effectively as possible, given that the application process is largely intended to be employer led in circumstances where employers have had to make people redundant over the course of the pandemic or will have to make them redundant in the coming years. I know this is expected to become part of the termination process, but, as regards the provision in the legislation for a worker to make an application to the Minister where an employer has refused to make an application for him or her, how is this going to work in practice? Will it be the same as always or will there be a separate line or a set of forms to be filled out?

The legislation states that an application is to be made in a manner to be determined by the Minister. Will it be directly up to the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, or will it be up to the Minister for Social Protection? Will it fall between two stools such that it will not be anyone's responsibility? It would be helpful if the Minister of State could clarify whether the application will be online or paper based and how it will work in practice? The details on that would be very helpful.

We will support this legislation. It contains many of the aims and aspirations of the legislation I introduced myself. I will be happy to work with the Minister of State to get it through the Houses as quickly as possible.

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