Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Question 42: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the reason for the differential between the redundancy figures and the live register figures; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40961/09]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The redundancy payment scheme is administered by my Department on behalf of the Department of Social and Family Affairs and makes payments in respect of eligible employees who qualify for statutory redundancy entitlement. Redundancy payments are paid out of the Social Insurance Fund (SIF).

Under the scheme, all eligible employees are entitled to a statutory redundancy lump sum payment on being made redundant. A redundancy situation arises in general where an employee's job no longer exists and he/she is not replaced. To qualify for redundancy the following criteria must obtain:

The employee must have at least two years continuous service (104 weeks).

The employee must be in employment which is insurable under the Social Welfare Acts. Full-time employees must be in employment which is insurable for all benefits under the Social Welfare Acts. For part-time employees, this does not apply.

The employee must be 16 years or older

The employee must have been made redundant as a result of a genuine redundancy situation. Therefore, the redundancy payment statistics compiled by my Department measure the number of persons in employment with a minimum of two years continuous service and who meet the other criteria that I have mentioned in order to obtain redundancy entitlements. By definition, this would exclude persons in employment who do not qualify under the terms of the redundancy payments.

In relation to the Live Register figures, it should be noted that the Live Register is not designed to measure unemployment. It includes part-time, seasonal and casual workers who are entitled to unemployment benefit. At the end of October 2009 there were 412,400 people on the Live Register claiming unemployment benefits, which is 7,440 (1.8%) less than in September 2009. The live register is, however, 161,700 (64.5%) higher than this time last year. The year-on-year increase (currently measured from October 2008 to October 2009) is continuing to decline from the peak of 197,800 recorded in June 2009. The seasonally adjusted figure for October is 422,500, which is a monthly decrease of 3,000 from September.

As the Deputy may know, the quarterly household survey collated and published by the Central Statistics Office measures employment and unemployment. According to the most recent survey there were 264,600 persons unemployed in the second quarter of 2009, an increase of 137,900 (+109%) over the corresponding period in the previous year.