Written answers

Tuesday, 6 July 2010

Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation

Redundancy Payments

10:00 am

Photo of Olwyn EnrightOlwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 108: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation further to Parliamentary Question No. 60 of 27 May, 2010, if he will confirm when payment will issue to a person (details supplied) who was made redundant in November 2009 and has not yet received their statutory redundancy payment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29207/10]

Photo of Olwyn EnrightOlwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 109: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation further to Parliamentary Question No. 29 of 2 June, 2010, if he will confirm when payment will issue to a person (details supplied) who was made redundant in November 2009 and has not yet received their statutory redundancy payment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29208/10]

Photo of Dara CallearyDara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 108 and 109 together.

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 statutory redundancy lump sum claims on 25 March, 2010 in respect of the individuals concerned. These claim await processing. In respect of redundancy lump sum payments paid directly to employees, such as in this instance, the Section is, in general, processing claims dating from November 2009.

In relation to Redundancy claims, the scale of the challenge 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 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 existing outstanding tax liabilities which those employers owe to the Revenue Commissioners.

The backlog and waiting times remain at unacceptable levels. However, improvements are evident. I should point out that my Department has, in 2009, processed 50,664 claims, up 70% on 2008. In the period 1 January 2010 to 30 June 2010 new claims amounted to 33,876 - a fall off of 20% on the corresponding 6 month period in 2009 when 42,323 new claims were lodged. The reduction in incoming claims is most welcome. Inroads are being made in the backlog of claims reducing from 42,591 in December 2009 to a level of 33,729 at end June 2010. In the first six months of 2010, 40,527 claims were processed, up 115% on the same period last year.

Responsibility for the payment functions arising under the Redundancy and Insolvency payment schemes is due to be transferred to the Department of Social Protection with effect from 1 January 2011. 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.

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