Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020 suspended a worker's right to seek redundancy payments when laid off or put on short-time work due to the pandemic. Deputy Nash of the Labour Party tabled an amendment that would have dealt with this issue at the start of the pandemic and, perhaps, saved the State some share of the burden that may now be necessarily placed upon it. At the time, we agreed not to pursue the amendment as we were assured that the issue would be dealt with and we did not wish to delay emergency legislation. The unamended Covid legislation meant that any employee who ended up being made redundant would have had time during the pandemic excluded from any calculated period of redundancy if time spent laid off or on short-time work in the final three years of redundancy was not included in the original legislation. This Bill is being introduced to ensure there is a scheme to provide a State payment to make up for any time not counted because of time spent laid off during the pandemic. The fact that workers' minimum statutory payments will be made up by the State through a payment from the Social Insurance Fund in such cases should ensure that the worker will not be out of pocket with regard to their minimum payments in the event of being made redundant having been laid off during the pandemic. This is to be welcomed.

Normally, under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967, when a redundancy payment is made from the Social Insurance Fund to an employee on an employer's behalf, a debt is raised against that employer. The Department of Social Protection is legally obliged to recover such debts from the employer. If this remains the case, the State will be able to pursue solvent employers. If there is an exemption, we will unfortunately have to put an extra burden on the State, which would not have been needed if this problem had been fixed immediately.

In supporting the legislation as outlined, we appreciate that, at the time, the legislation was put forward because of the need for emergency measures. However, through Deputy Nash, we made an attempt to improve the original legislation. We feel that, if we had been listened to, there would not be a need for this measure now. Perhaps in future discussions between those of us in the Opposition and the Government, the Government will appreciate that the Labour Party and other parties in the Oireachtas come to this space with the best of intentions and from a place of knowledge. That is particularly true of my colleague, Deputy Nash. In that regard, while we support the Bill, we would encourage the Government to heretofore understand that many of us in this House are genuinely here to try to improve the lot of the worker and not to cause the Government unnecessary difficulty. We support the Bill and will be making further contributions as it goes through the Houses.

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