Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 1709: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation the position regarding an application in respect of a person (details supplied) in County Kildare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32517/10]

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 can confirm that my Department received a statutory redundancy lump sum claim on 4 May, 2010 in respect of the above individual. This claim awaits processing.

In respect of lump sum payments paid directly to employees in instances where employers are unable to pay the statutory redundancy entitlements, the current processing time for these claims has improved significantly and claims dating from February 2010 are currently being processed. Of course in some instances, where the necessary supporting documentation for lump sum claims is not provided to my Department, or where queries arise, processing of claims can be further delayed until the required documentation is provided and/or outstanding queries are resolved.

My Department continues to make every effort to reduce processing times. Measures already taken in the Department to alleviate the pressures on the payments area include:

Almost doubling the number of staff working solely on redundancy payment claims 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.

I would also point to the fact that in the eight-month period up to the end of August 2010, the number of claims processed by my Department was 51,800, a 96% increase compared to the corresponding period in 2009 (26,405) which also exceeds the total number of claims processed for the whole year 2009 (50,664). Currently the weekly intake of new claims is an average of just over 1,200. Overall, new claims received in the first eight months of 2010 amounted to 43,449, a fall of just over 20% over the corresponding eight-month period in 2009 when 54,439 claims were lodged.

The claims backlog which reached its highest level at 43,000 in the latter quarter of 2009 has been reduced to a level of 32,137 at the end of August 2010 representing a reduction in the backlog of almost 11,000 claims.

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.