Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the Redundancy Payments (Amendment) Bill 2022. I thank Deputy O'Reilly of Sinn Féin, who brought a similar Bill forward on 18 March last year. Many hundreds of thousands of workers have faced a terrible time during the pandemic, especially during the periods when most businesses were ordered by the Government to shut down their operations. This caused enormous stress for workers. It is to be hoped this Bill will ensure that no workers will lose out through no fault of their own. I also welcome that the payment will be set at €1,860, as per the legislation on redundancy payments.

I will raise a point about the employers. I am concerned that the taxpayer will be picking up the entire cost of the redundancies, with a possible bill of up to €150 million. This is at the higher end of the estimates, but we will have to make provision for such sums of money. The paragraph on this in Oireachtas Library and Research Service resource on the Bill states, "The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment received legal advice to the effect that imposing the cost of the lay-off period [...] on employers would give rise to the constitutional issues and is fraught with legal risk". Will the Minister of State publish that legal advice and provide a briefing on the constitutional issues involved? We all know that many employers will do whatever they can to avoid paying a fair redundancy package to their employees even if they can afford it. I am not convinced that this provision will not be exploited by employers to allow them to get away with not paying their fair share of redundancy packages. It should not just be a matter of the statutory payment if employers can afford to contribute. Many Deputies have been on the picket line in support of workers, most recently the Debenhams workers. In that case, we saw a major multinational company do its utmost to avoid paying its workers a fair redundancy package that had already been agreed.

I welcome the Bill. We will do our best to ensure it passes as quickly as possible so that workers can get their rights and redundancy packages.

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