David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Question 217: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of people currently awaiting statutory redundancy payments as notified to the National Employment Rights Authority; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34029/09]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Redundancy Payments Section of my Department is in receipt of an unprecedented level of claims for redundancy payment that are giving rise to very significant delays in the processing of those payments for both companies and individuals. 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. The Department is currently processing rebate claims submitted online from March '09 and claims filed manually from February '09.

To put it in perspective, at end September 2009, the number of Redundancy claims paid by my Department relating to applications received in 2009 and earlier years, amounted to 32,127. This equates to payments of around €206.5 million, both to employers and, in some cases, directly to employees. This means the Department is issuing an average of around €5.7 million per week in redundancy payments. The backlog of applications awaiting payment at end September '09 stands at 43,250. Of this total, an estimated 10,500 claims are the subject of requests for further information.

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.

Ned O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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Question 218: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the position regarding a claim for redundancy payment by a person (details supplied) in County Cork. [34093/09]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I have to advise the Deputy that my understanding, based on the records available in the Redundancy Payments Section of my Department is that there is no record of a claim for a redundancy payment in relation to the individual in question.