Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for the opportunity to raise this matter and I will be brief. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Billy Kelleher, who will reply to the debate but I am disappointed, given the fact that I met him in the public corridors five minutes ago, that the Minister with responsibility for this matter, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, has not turned up in the Chamber.

Today, this month's live register figures were published and almost 450,000 people are unemployed. I will not dwell on the Government's lack of a jobs policy. I am here to try to assist in problem solving because for thousands of people getting their statutory entitlement to a redundancy payment is proving to be an extraordinary endurance course. I raised this matter some weeks ago with the Minister, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, who seemed to take some comfort in the fact that the waiting list for redundancy payments had been cut from 43,000 last November to 33,000 in August this year. On that basis of progress, we will be waiting several years before the list will be cleared, given the fact that thousands more come onto the list every month.

To me, the State should aspire to pay statutory entitlement to people going through a very traumatic time in the shortest period possible, and an eight-week period should be the target for the Government to set itself. That is not an excessively burdensome target. The basis for achieving this is in the Croke Park agreement, which states:

In view of the major economic challenges facing the country the Government are committed to obtaining maximum efficiencies from, and reducing the size of, the Public Service. The Government and the public service unions confirm that in the context of a reduction in numbers serving in the public service:

(i) it will from time to time be necessary to increase staffing in certain designated priority areas in accordance with Government policy

It also states that the Minister reserves the right to redeploy civil servants as may be required and appropriate between Departments to meet priority needs.

The question that the Minister, Deputy O'Keeffe, has to answer, and that the Minister of State, Deputy Kelleher, might attempt to answer, is what priority is attached by the Government to paying people their statutory redundancy when they lose their jobs. I understand it is a cumbersome process if a former employer does not co-operate and a recommendation is required from the Employment Appeals Tribunal. However, in the majority of cases it should be straightforward. I am sure the Minister of State accepts that seven or eight months is an unacceptable delay.

The genesis of the solution to the problem is the Croke Park agreement and I wish the Minister would get on with it. Perhaps he is unable to exert sufficient influence around the Cabinet table — I am loathe to indicate he might be the weakest link in Cabinet — to get the necessary resources.

The subject matter of many parliamentary questions today is when the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation will pay individuals named in those questions their entitlement to statutory redundancy. The Minister of State can head off this issue by obtaining sufficient resources. People ring up and are referred to the National Employment Rights Authority; the Department will not even answer the phone. I could understand that if we were making progress in payments but there is a seven or eight month waiting list for people for their statutory entitlement and that is simply not acceptable. I urge the Minister of State to problem solve and obtain more staff resources. In many areas in the public and Civil Service there is not the same demand now that there is a reduction of activity in our economy, and human resources need to be directed to where we have problems. I implore the Minister of State to address the issue.

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Creed for raising this matter on the Adjournment. Without starting a political debate on the issue, the Croke Park agreement is a critical component in the overall restructuring of public services and the delivery of services to the public. At the time, we were criticised quite a lot by some Members opposite for spending too much time engaged in discussions with the unions trying to reach an agreement. That is an aside but it is important to point out that the Croke Park agreement is an integral part of reform of the public services.

Unfortunately, the economic downturn has left employers with little choice other than to radically reorganise and rationalise their business models, unfortunately leading, in the worst case scenario, to making employees redundant.

Fortunately, in the first eight months of this year, there is concrete evidence of a levelling off of redundancy levels. In 2009, the monthly level of redundancy claims lodged with my Department averaged almost 6,500 a month and, to date this has reduced to an average of just under 5,500.

The Department administers the Social Insurance Fund in redundancy matters on behalf of the Department of Social Protection and makes two types of payment from the fund — rebates to those employers who have paid statutory redundancy to eligible employees, and statutory lump sums to employees whose employers are insolvent and/or in receivership or liquidation.

The Department is currently processing redundancy claims including rebates and lump sums dating from February and March of this year so that the waiting time is approximately six or seven months. In some instances, where the necessary supporting documentation for claims is not provided to my Department, or where queries arise, processing of claims can be further delayed until the required documentation is provided and/or outstanding queries are resolved.

The Department has made significant efforts to deliver more acceptable turnaround processing times for redundancy payments given the difficulties that this gives rise to for individual employees and for the business community. Measures already taken in the Department in 2009 to alleviate the pressures on the payments area include: almost doubling the number of staff through reassignment to a current level of 52 full-time equivalents; establishment of a special call-handling facility in NERA to deal with the huge volume of telephone calls from individuals and businesses concerned about their payments; better quality information relating to current processing times on the Department's website; and engagement with the Revenue Commissioners to facilitate the offset of redundancy rebate payments by employers against existing outstanding tax liabilities which those employers owe to the Revenue Commissioners.

I was there for a period as Minister of State with responsibility for labour affairs. It is the Minister of State with responsibility for labour affairs who is statutorily functionally responsible for the redundancy section. This was something that was becoming very evident, and we started to move resources and tried to put in place mechanisms that would facilitate and expedite payments.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Not with any great success.

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I accept that the backlog and waiting times remain at an unacceptably high level. However, improvements are evident and the waiting times are reducing. I should point out that my Department has, in the eight-month period up to the end of August 2010, processed 51,800 claims, a 96% increase compared to the corresponding period in 2009 when the level of claims processed was 26,405. The number processed in that period also outstrips the total number of claims processed for the whole of 2009 when the level of claims processed was 50,664.

Overall, new claims received in the first eight months of 2010 amounted to 43,449, a fall of just over 20% over the corresponding eight-month period in 2009 when 54,439 claims were lodged. Indicative figures for September, with one further day to go, are promising and point to a significant levelling off of new claims. If this trend continues, it will be very welcome.

The claims backlog, which reached its highest level at 43,000 in the latter quarter of 2009, has been reduced considerably to a level of 32,137 at the end of August 2010 representing a reduction in the backlog of almost 11,000 claims. I understand that when the September figures are finalised over the next day or so, the backlog will show a further significant reduction to about 30,000.

Responsibility for the payment functions arising under the redundancy and insolvency payment schemes is due to be transferred to the Department of Social Protection with effect from 1 January 2011. In transferring the functions between Departments, it is the intention that this will operate seamlessly and without any adverse impact on the service levels being experienced by individuals or the business community awaiting payment of redundancy claims.

The 52 full-time staff work exceptionally hard. They work well and beyond the call of duty. They are flexible and they are conscious that behind these statistics are employees and employers who have faced a difficult turbulence in their lives due to the difficult economic circumstances and those who have lost their jobs.