Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 129: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the shortest period and the longest period for companies who have made employees redundant to receive their 60% rebate from her Department currently and in each of the past three years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13318/09]

Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 130: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the reason applications for redundancy rebate payments due to employers back to October 2008 are still not paid; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13326/09]

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 129 and 130 together.

The huge increase in the number of Redundancy Payment claims lodged with the Redundancy Payments Section of my Department in the latter part of 2008 and, to date in 2009 is unprecedented and is giving rise to delays in the processing of redundancy payments for individuals and companies within a reasonable timeframe. The scale of the challenge is evident from the statistics which indicate that, at the end of the first quarter of 2009, the number of new claims lodged with my Department was 19,742 which equates to almost 50% of the entire level of applications lodged for the whole of 2008 i.e. 40, 607. It is also equivalent to 78% of applications lodged for the whole of 2007. The number of claims received is averaging 1,600 per week. Both the Tánaiste and I are acutely aware of the difficulties which the inability to deliver an acceptable turnaround of redundancy rebate payments is giving rise to for both individual employees and the business community and together, we are taking steps to address the issues.

Up until mid 2008, our customer service targets for processing correctly completed redundancy claims were, in order of priority:

4-6 weeks for statutory redundancy lump sum claims to employees whose employers failed to pay the statutory entitlement;

6 weeks where claims were correctly submitted on-line, hard copy printed down correctly signed and sent in by employer.

10+ weeks for manual claims sent in by employers.

By and large these targets were met. Because of the huge surge in the number of claims received in Redundancy Payments in 2008, customer service targets have slipped as existing staff levels are insufficient to cope with such a massive increase in claim numbers. Actual timeframes being achieved are, in order of priority:

6-8+ weeks for statutory lump sum payments to employees whose employers had failed to pay the statutory entitlement

12+ weeks for correctly submitted on-line claims, hard copy printed down correctly signed and sent in by employer.

16+ weeks for manual claims sent in by employers.

I have re-allocated an additional 9 persons to the Redundancy Payments Section since the start of the year and I have identified an additional 12 persons to be reassigned in the coming days and weeks. However, there is a limit to the amount of people that we can reassign internally because other areas of my Department are equally busy — for example on labour force activation issues and in the employment rights bodies (e.g. Employment Appeals Tribunal). Therefore, I am also in discussions with the Department of Finance to see what scope there is for the assignment of additional staff, possibly from other Departments, as happened in the case of the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

One of the problems is that people — quite rightly — are concerned about their redundancy claims and are telephoning frequently to check on progress. While this is understandable, it is adding to the delays as it means that staff are tied up on phones and not processing the claims. Therefore, we are making arrangements so that the dedicated call centre of the National Employment Rights Authority will be able to give out better and more up-to-date information to callers about the status of their applications. I can assure the Deputies that this matter is under constant review in my Department and that every effort is being made to deal with an increasing backlog in an attempt to ensure that claimants get the best possible service at, what is for them, a very difficult time.