Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)
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Question 86: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the changes made within his Department to optimise the advanced warning period in order to ensure a swifter and more efficient response to mitigate the effects of redundancies following the introduction of mandatory notification of the disemployment of 20 or more employees prior to the issuing of redundancy notices. [37982/06]

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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A Collective redundancy means dismissals effected by an employer for one or more reasons not related to the individual concerned where in any period of 30 days the number of such dismissals is:

(a) at least 5 in an establishment normally employing more than 20 and less than 50 employees,

(b) at least ten in an establishment normally employing at least 50 but less that 100 employees,

(c) at least ten cent of the number of employees in an establishment normally employing at least 100 but less than 300 employees, and

(d) at least 30 in an establishment normally employing 300 or more employees.

In a collective redundancy situation employers are required to notify the Minister at least 30 days before the redundancies commence.

When the notification is received in this Department, the local FÁS Office is informed of the forthcoming redundancies and other relevant agencies are also informed if appropriate. The resources of FÁS are available to all redundant workers. FÁS provides workers with information and advice and places workers on training programmes, which often lead to further employment.

In order to improve its customer service in making payments under the Statutory Redundancy Payments Scheme, this Department introduced on 31st May, 2005 a new user-friendly on-line redundancy applications system. This quicker and more efficient system has proved to be a success and the take-up rate of this on-line facility by customers has increased from an initial 12% to 52% at present.