Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 63: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of redundancies notified to her Department in respect of each year from 2002 to 2008 and to date in 2009; the number of projected redundancies for 2009; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19836/09]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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Question 66: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the amount of money paid out in statutory redundancy payments in respect of each year from 2002 to 2008; the projected figure for 2009; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19837/09]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 63 and 66 together.

For convenience, I set out below two Tables containing the statistical information sought. Table 1 sets out the number of statutory redundancies for years 2002 to 2008 and details for 2009 which are provisional figures (up to the end of April). These figures show the number of employees who actually qualified for statutory redundancy lump sum payments. They do not reflect those who lost their jobs with less than two years service in employment. I am unable to provide a projection of the final number of projected redundancies in 2009. However, it is clear from the figures that I am making available that there were almost 28,000 notified redundancies in the first four months of this year i.e. to end April. This already represents around 69% of the total for the full year in 2008 - when we received 40,607 claims over the 12 month period. For comparison, the total number of claims received in 2007 was 25,459, so the increase in 2008 over 2007 was around 159%.

Table 2 shows the amount of monies paid out of the Social Insurance Fund in respect of redundancy claims for the years 2002 - 2008 up to and including the end of April 2009. It should be noted that the figures provided for 2008 and to date in 2009 are provisional figures. It is not possible to project the figure for 2009 given that this will hinge on a number of variables including the number of claims received, the length of service of the claimants etc. However, it is clear from the figures that payments so far this year amounted to €73.6 million compared to a total last year of €183.2 million. Therefore, in the first four months of this year, we have made payments which are equivalent to 40% of the total amount that was paid last year over the 12 month period.

I can include in the Official Report for Deputies, if they wish, all the figures relating to the number and value of redundancy claims for each of the last 8 years. However, this information has already been given to the House on many occasions in recent weeks in the form of responses to written questions.

Table 1: Actual Statutory Redundancies for years 2002 to 2008 and (provisional figures up to end of April, 2009)

Table 2: Expenditure on Statutory Redundancies for years 2002 to 2008 and (provisional figure up to end of April, 2009)

(€000)