Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is a short but important Bill, which Sinn Féin will be supporting. It will amend the principal Act to provide for once-off redundancy payments for workers in respect of certain lay-off periods from 13 March 2020 to 30 September 2021. My colleague, An Teachta O’Reilly, became aware of this problem early in the pandemic and has introduced the Redundancy Payments (Lay-off, Short Time and Calculation of Reckonable Service) Bill 2021 to the House to address this issue. An Teachta O’Reilly Bill seeks to deliver a fair calculation of recognisable service for workers on the PUP who may lose out on significant sums of money in future redundancy payments. As matters stand, due to a loophole in the law, workers could lose out on significant sums because time spent on the PUP will not count when calculating entitlements. This Bill seeks to make that time reckonable service, which will ensure that workers will not have a lost year when it comes to future redundancy entitlements. When the PUP was introduced last year, redundancy entitlements were suspended for people who were temporarily laid off. Section 12A of the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 was temporarily suspended during the Covid-19 crisis, which ensured that employees were protected from being made redundant. Employers were also protected because the measure meant that a large number of workers were not applying for redundancy payments.

Under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967, statutory redundancy is based on duration of the service. Under the existing Act as well, periods of lay-offs during the final three years of service do not count as reckonable service. This means that redundancy entitlements will not factor in those periods. This legislation ensures that those workers can access a special tax-free State payment of up to €1,860, which will be provided for out of the Social Insurance Fund. Employers will not be liable for this compensatory repayment, which is only right. Such an imposition could endanger the viability of some businesses which would otherwise be able to recover.

It was great to see measures being possible during the pandemic that were previously judged to be too socialist or too anti-private property rights to be introduced. I urge the Government to embrace its inner socialist and try to address the housing, education and health crises with a similar attitude.

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