Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Question 70: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation the number of employers awaiting rebates from his Department for redundancies paid to former employees; the number of payments outstanding; the amount of time it is taking to process these claims; the number of employers in south Tipperary awaiting payment; and the number of staff employed to undertake this task in his Department. [31478/10]

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 Protection. 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 advise the Deputy that the latest figures available to end June 2010 indicate that the number of redundancy claims spanning both rebate and lump sum claims awaiting processing stands at 33,713. Unfortunately, I am unable to provide the Deputy with the specific breakdown requested as regards numbers of redundancy rebate and redundancy lump sum claims awaiting processing for South Tipperary as the Department does not collate statistics for redundancy payment claims on the basis of local authority boundaries. I am sure the Deputy will appreciate that at this time my focus and that of my Department is on ensuring that redundancy payments are processed as quickly as possible.

The Redundancy Payments Section of my Department is currently processing rebate applications submitted from December 2009 and lump sum claims from November 2009, so that the waiting time is approximately 7/8 months.

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 33,713 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.

Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 71: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation the number of jobs that have been created in the enterprise sector from 2005 to date in 2010; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31525/10]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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Figures in respect of numbers employed in firms assisted by the industrial development agencies -IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and Shannon Development - are compiled annually in the Forfás Annual Employment Survey, the most up to date of which are the 2009 figures. As the information is compiled on an annualised basis, the figures in respect of 2010 will not be available until 2011. Details of the agency figures are set out in the following table.

My Department does not collect or retain information on the number of specific jobs created in County and City Enterprise Board assisted companies. However statistical information in relation to details of jobs existing in companies assisted by the County and City Enterprise Boards is collated annually and is set out in the following table for 2005 to 2009. Figures in respect of 2010 will be available in early 2011.