Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 195: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the progress she has made to date on the 60 applications forwarded to her Department from persons who were made redundant from a company (details supplied) and who are seeking compensation from the insolvent fund; and when the outstanding wages, holiday monies and so on will be awarded to them. [38102/09]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I can confirm that my Department received on 8 October 2009 applications under the Insolvency Payments Scheme for Arrears of Wages, Holiday Pay and Minimum Notice on behalf of the former employees of Peter Casey and Sons Limited. I should point out that the impact on business of the severe economic circumstances currently pertaining has resulted in a significant rise in the level of company receiverships and insolvencies. Consequently, an increasing number of claims are being submitted to the Insolvency Payments Section, with 17,933 new claims recorded from January 1 to September 30 - an increase of over 144% against the corresponding figure for this period in 2008. My officials endeavour to process all claims as quickly as possible and claims are dealt with in order of date of receipt. At present applications received in June 2009 are being processed.

I am advised also that a number of rebate and lump sum redundancy claims in respect of the former employees of the company have been submitted to the Redundancy Payment Section of my Department during October 2009 and that these are awaiting processing. There are two types of redundancy claims – rebates to those employers who have paid statutory redundancy to eligible employees, and statutory lump sums to employees whose employers are insolvent and/or in receivership/liquidation.

Currently, the average time it takes to process rebate applications from employers filed online is seven months while claims submitted by post are taking eight months. The Redundancy Payments Section of my Department is currently processing applications filed online from March 2009 and those submitted by post from February 2009. In respect of lump sum payments paid directly to employees in instances where employers are unable to pay the statutory redundancy entitlements, the section is, in general, processing claims dating from June 2009.

Given the unprecedented increase in redundancy payment claims lodged with my Department in since late 2008 it has proved impossible to maintain the customer service targets that previously obtained. The scale of the challenge is evident from the statistics that show incoming redundancy claims with a cumulative figure for the first nine months of 2009 at 60,785 an increase of 122% on the same period last year (27,373). This figure of 60,785 exceeds the claims lodged for the full year 2008 (40,607) and 2008 was, of itself, an exceptional year as compared with earlier years when claims received were of the order of 25,000.

Efforts continue to be made by my Department to deliver more acceptable turnaround processing times for redundancy payments given the difficulties that this gives rise to for both individual employees and the business community. Measures already taken include: the reassignment of 26.7 additional staff (full time equivalents) from other areas of the Department to the redundancy payments area since early 2009 with ongoing review of trends and demands. The current number of staff serving in the redundancy payments section in terms of full time equivalents is 53.8; the prioritisation of the Department's overtime budget towards staff in the redundancy payments section to tackle the backlog outside normal hours; the establishment of a special call handling facility to deal with the huge volume of telephone calls from people and businesses who are naturally concerned about their payments, using the facilities and co-operation of the National Employment Rights Authority (NERA). This centre has received an average of 12,500 calls per month this year with an estimated 60% relating to redundancy payments; the provision of better quality information relating to current processing times on the Department's website; engagement with the Revenue Commissioners to facilitate the offset of redundancy rebate payments by employers against outstanding tax liabilities with the Revenue Commissioners.

The Tánaiste and I continue to monitor closely the impact of these changes against the continuing influx of redundancy claims and will consider further measures to deal with the situation should current measures prove to be inadequate.