Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 186: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question No. 205 of 26 January 2010, the number of cases in each of the past three years in which her Department acted in locus of an employer whose company was in liquidation or receivership; the number of redundancies represented in such cases in each of those years; the costs incurred by the Exchequer; the amounts recouped from the liquidator and receiver in each of these years; the amounts still outstanding; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5053/10]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 187: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question No. 205 of 26 January 2010, the number of cases in each of the past three years in which her Department sought evidence from an employer of their inability to pay the redundancy entitlements of the employees in cases where the employer of their inability to pay the redundancy entitlements of the employees in cases where the employer did not formally wind up the company but went into informal insolvency; the number of redundancies represented in such cases in each of these years; the number of these employers who admitted liability for 40% of the total cost of the redundancy payments; the number of redundancies represented in such cases in each of these years; the number who did not admit liability; the number of redundancies represented in such cases in each of these years; the number of cases in which her Department pursued a company for payment of the 40% share; the amount recovered in each of these years; the amount still outstanding; and the costs to the Exchequer in these circumstances in each of these years. [5054/10]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 186 and 187 together.

I must advise the Deputy that the level of information requested in both questions is extremely detailed and would consume considerable resources within what is currently a very busy area of my Department to provide the information requested. I am sure the Deputy will appreciate that the main focus of the Redundancy Payments Section currently is to dispatch redundancy payment claims to individuals and businesses as quickly as possible.

Under the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967 - 2007, the objective is to ensure that statutory redundancy payments, due to eligible employees on being made redundant, are made in accordance with the legislative provisions. The legislation places the onus, in the first instance, on the employer to discharge the obligation to pay redundancy entitlement to employees. In so doing, the employer is entitled, by virtue of pay related social contributions made to the State, to recover a 60% rebate on the amount paid out in redundancy payments to employees. In the years the Deputy has enquired into i.e. 2007, 2008 and 2009 redundancy rebate payments paid out to employers totalled €167.4m, €161.8m and, €247.9m respectively.

In the case of liquidations/receiverships and in cases of informal insolvency where the Department paid the redundancy lump sums directly to the employees, the amounts paid out of the Social Insurance Fund in the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 amounted respectively to €14.6m, €29.8m and €85.5m. In these cases, the Department seeks to recover 40% of the amount paid out as this is the company's share of the liability of the employees' statutory payment. In cases where the employer simply refuses to pay a redundancy lump sum, the payment will be made from the fund and the Department then endeavors to recover the full 100% from the employer. Amounts paid in these cases amounted to €1.4m, €2.1m and €2.5m respectively for the years 2007 to 2009.

The Minister becomes a preferential creditor in a winding-up situation in recovering amounts paid from the Social Insurance Fund (SIF) and this debt stands against a company for as long as it is live on the Companies Register at the Company Registration Office. The total amounts paid by the Department from the Social Insurance Fund in the relevant years are shown in the following Table 1.

In the years 2007, 2008 and 2009, the Department has been successful in recovering to the Social Insurance Fund amounts of €0.6m, €0.9m and, €3.6m respectively. The cumulative debt outstanding to the Social Insurance Fund for the years in question are €37.7m, €48.4m and €78.7m respectively. The numbers of redundancies that occurred during the period 2007 – 2009 were 25,459, 40,607 and 77,001.

The above information is included in table format for ease of reference in tables 2, 3 and 4.

Table 1: Redundancy Payments made from the Social Insurance Fund (€)

Table 2: Recoveries in Respect of Redundancy Payments (€)

Note the amounts recovered in each year relates to monies recovered for the current year and earlier years.

Table 3: Amounts Outstanding due to SIF in respect of Redundancy Payments (€)

All figures are cumulative figures

Please note that figures for both 2008 and 2009 in tables 1, 2 and 3 are *provisional figures.

Table 4: Actual Statutory Redundancies lodged for years 2007 to 2009