Written answers

Wednesday, 5 May 2010

Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation

Redundancy Payments

9:00 pm

Photo of Tom HayesTom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 106: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation when redundancy payment will issue to a person (details supplied) in County Tipperary; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18194/10]

Photo of Dara CallearyDara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

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 can confirm that my Department received a redundancy lump sum claim from the employee concerned on 27 January, 2010.

In this instance, the employee took a case directly to the Employment Appeals Tribunal and was successful in obtaining a determination to redundancy entitlement and, on this basis, has now applied to my Department for payment of that entitlement. The Department must discharge its obligation to protect, to the greatest possible extent, payments made from the Social Insurance Fund (SIF) and minimise the impact on that Fund. In this regard, and to give the employer an opportunity to meet his obligation to make the redundancy payments to the employees as required in the first instance, my Department wrote to the employer in mid-April 2010 requesting payment of the redundancy entitlements. The letter outlines that if the employer is not in a position to pay the redundancy entitlements, documentary evidence of this (as outlined) should be submitted as well as acknowledgement of the debt owing to the SIF. At the time of writing to the employer, my Department wrote also to the employees affected requesting completion of a form verifying that payment of redundancy entitlements has not been made by the employer following the EAT determination.

My Department will review and follow up on this case after a reasonable period of time of 3 to 4 weeks has elapsed following the issue of the letters to the employer and the employees with a view to securing payment of the redundancy entitlements for the employees at the earliest possible date.

I should point out that the impact on business of the severe economic circumstances currently pertaining has resulted in an unprecedented increase in the level of Redundancy Payment claims lodged with my Department. This has impacted significantly on the capacity to maintain the customer service targets that previously obtained. The scale of the challenge on the Redundancy side is evident from the statistics that show incoming redundancy claims in 2009 amounted to 77,001 which represents a threefold increase over the level of claims lodged in 2007 and earlier years. In 2007, 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 in the Department in 2009 to alleviate the pressures on the Payments area include:

· almost doubling the number of staff through reassignment to a current level of 52 full time equivalents;

· prioritisation of the Department's overtime budget towards staff in the both Section to tackle the backlog outside normal hours;

· establishment of a special call handling facility in NERA to deal with the huge volume of telephone calls from people and businesses concerned about their payments.

· 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 which those employers owe to the Revenue Commissioners.

The backlog and waiting times remain at unacceptable levels. However, improvements are evident. The number of claims processed and paid by the Redundancy Payments Section in 2009 amounted to 50,664, an increase of 70% over 2008. In the first quarter of 2010, my Department processed 21,122 claims - an increase of over 151% on the previous first quarter in 2009. Claims processed in the month of March 2010 was the highest ever achieved in the Section with 8,168 claims processed in the month. In the year to date, inroads have being made on the backlog of claims on hand, which reduced from 41,168 at the end January 2010 to 37,054 at the end of March 2010.

Responsibility for the payment of redundancy and insolvency payments is due to be transferred to the Department of Social Protection. The intention is to transfer by Government order, the payment functions arising under the Redundancy Payment and Insolvency Payment schemes. In transferring the functions between Departments, it is the intention that this will operate seamlessly and without any adverse impact on the service levels being experienced by individuals or the business community awaiting payment of redundancy claims.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.