Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

Senator O'Toole is quite right in saying that a major redundancy situation begat a directive which led to the transposition in terms of this Bill. He is also correct in saying that the passage of the Bill through the Houses was informed or certainly otherwise affected by the redundancy situation at Irish Ferries. It has come to my attention that a redundancy rebate application was made to the Department through the on-line process at the end of last month. Under the customer service target, that would normally be dealt with within six weeks, although that certainly will not be happening. Many issues, most of which were referred to by Senator O'Toole, will come into play in that regard. My understanding is that section 39(16) of the 1967 Act might be the pertinent legislation in this regard. Clearly, however, we will need to obtain legal advice to decide how exactly to proceed and whether a redundancy situation exists under the terms of the various pieces of redundancy legislation. That is the current position and, to the best of my knowledge at this stage, that matter has not been adjudicated upon.