Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Question 77: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the waiting time, in view of the Redundancy Payment Acts 1967 to 2003, for employers to receive the rebate for redundancies from her Department when her Department have to pay the employers 60% of the redundancies paid out; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32702/09]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Currently, the average time it takes to process rebate applications from employers filed online is 7 months while claims submitted by post are taking 8 months. However, to put it in perspective, at end August 2009 the number of Redundancy claims paid by my Department relating to applications received in 2009 and earlier years, amounted to 26,405. This equates to payments of around €179 million, both to employers and, in some cases, directly to employees. This means the Department is issuing an average of around €5 million per week in redundancy payments. The backlog of applications awaiting payment at end August stands at 43,250. Of this total, an estimated 7,500 claims are the subject of query and requests for further information.

Regarding rebate payments made to employers which amount to 60% of the amount paid out by employers, claims completed manually, submitted by post and received in January and claims submitted online (to www.entemp.ie) received in February are currently being processed. Claims submitted online because of their nature tend to have a faster processing time. Regarding statutory lump sum payments to employees whose former employers are insolvent and/or in receivership/liquidation and are unable to pay the Department is currently processing claims received in June.

Naturally, the Tánaiste and I share concerns about current processing times which individuals and employers continue to experience and further initiatives, including that of additional resourcing measures, have been implemented in order to improve the turnaround in the processing of redundancy payments.