Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I too am happy to speak on this Bill and to say Sinn Féin will be supporting it. Being made redundant can be one of the most traumatic experiences in a person's life. It can be especially difficult if it occurs all of a sudden, if the employee has been a long time in the job or sector and if the employee has huge commitments, such as rent, mortgage or family commitments. An older worker may find it very hard to get another job. The redundant person wonders whether he or she will get another job with equal or better pay or any decent job at all that reflects his or her skills and experience in the workplace.

This Bill deals with a time of particular trauma for workers and small local employers, including the family businesses on which our economy is broadly built. In north Kildare, workers and small businesses were extremely worried about what lay ahead. We in Sinn Féin set out immediately to help them. This Bill deals with matters under the Redundancy Payments Act to allow for a once-off redundancy payment to workers with regard to certain lay-off periods from 13 March 2020 to 30 September 2021. It is fair to say that, on New Year's Eve 2019, nobody could have imagined that the whole of Europe would be in lockdown within three months. The Covid lay-offs were extremely worrying.

As the Minister of State knows, we immediately recognised a legislative issue and proposed our own legislation to protect workers and employers and counteract any difficulty, as my colleague Deputy Louise O'Reilly has already outlined. I am very glad to see this Bill closes the loophole whereby newly redundant workers would lose out on reckonable service while laid off due to public-health restrictions. This was a big worry for many workers in north Kildare. We were very anxious to reassure them that we would do what we could to protect them. We were approached by several workers who told us about employers who were trying to force them into redundancy on the sly or against their wishes. They were worried about their reckonable service.

The Bill makes sure that one can access the special tax-free State payment of up to a maximum of €1,860, which is financed through the Social Insurance Fund. While this is quite a short Bill, it is a really important one in that it looks after workers who have sacrificed so much during this pandemic, especially those who had to sacrifice their jobs.

We are happy to support the Bill. We will do all we can to assist in its passage through the Houses.

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