Joe Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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Question 26: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if her Department has been formally notified by a company (details supplied) of its intention to make more than 200 workers redundant; and if she intends to use the powers available to her under the Protection of Employment Act 1977 to require the company to enter into consultations with her on the proposed redundancies. [13817/04]

Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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On 27 April 2004, the company concerned wrote to my Department giving full notification of the proposed collective redundancies under section 12 of the Protection of Employment Act 1977. It also stated that the employee representatives had been consulted — sections 9 and 10 of that Act.

If the employees concerned are in any way unhappy with the consultation and provision of information provided by the company they can make a complaint to a rights commissioner under section 6 of the European Communities (Protection of Employment) Regulations, 2000, S.I. No. 488 of 2000. The rights commissioner will then hear evidence from both parties and make a decision which will do one or more of the following: declare that the complaint was or was not well-founded; require the employer to comply with the provisions of the 1977 Act concerned and for that purpose to take a specific course of action; or order the employer to pay the employee/s concerned compensation of a maximum of four weeks remuneration. There is a time limit of six months for bringing such complaints to a rights commissioner.

To obtain more information about their statutory employment rights, the employees concerned could contact the employment rights information section of my Department. Based at Davitt House, 65A Adelaide Road, Dublin 2, their telephone number is (01) 6313131 and their lo-call number is 1890 201 615. Information is also available from the Department's website, www.entemp.ie. For specific information on the Protection of Employment Act 1977, as amended, please see www.entemp.ie/ publications/employment/ 2001/ protectionofemploymentactguide.pdf. For information on Irish labour law generally, please see www.entemp.ie/ publications/ employment/ 2003/ guidetolabourlaw.pdf.