It was in this setting that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment carried out an internal review of the redundancy payments scheme early last year. It reviewed the operation of the scheme from an administrative efficiency and a customer service perspective. The purpose was to examine its rationale and continued relevance. It examined whether the delivery of the scheme could be made more customer-friendly or make greater use of information technology. It also suggested ways in which its operation could be streamlined. It aimed to develop a vision of an improved scheme which would involve appropriate, yet affordable, payments to redundant workers to meet the principles of the original Act, be simple to understand and provide administrative arrangements which would maximise the use of e-government to deliver the scheme quickly and efficiently.