Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 125: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if her attention has been drawn to the eight month delay in her Department's response in paying rebates due on foot of redundancy payments by the private sector; when a claim submitted on 2 July 2009 will be awarded to a company (details supplied) in Dublin 18; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9904/10]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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My Department administers the Social Insurance Fund (SIF) in relation to redundancy matters on behalf of the Department of Social and Family Affairs. There are two types of payment made from the SIF – 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.

I am pleased to advise the Deputy that the Redundancy Payments Section of my Department processed an application for a statutory rebate claim submitted by the company concerned and that payment is expected to issue within the next week.

Given the unprecedented increase in Redundancy Payment claims lodged with my Department 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 2009 of 77,001. This figure exceeds the claims lodged for 2008 (40,607) by 90% 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 52.5;

· 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 cooperation 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.

It is clear that these interventions are having an impact in that for example the numbers of claims processed and paid by the Redundancy Payments Section in 2008 and 2009 respectively amounted to 29,802 and 50,664.

The Tánaiste and I are monitoring closely the impact of these changes against the continuing influx of redundancy claims. However, it is clear that additional measures are required to help reduce the backlog of claims, which currently stands in excess of 40,000. The Department is currently actively engaged in efforts to secure up to 16 additional staff resources deployed to the area in the first quarter of 2010.