Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 347: To ask the Minister for Social Protection in respect of each year from 2002 to 2010, the number of redundancies notified to his Department; the number of projected redundancies for the full year of 2011; the amount of money paid out in statutory redundancy payment in respect of each year from 2002 to 2010; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2525/11]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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On 1 January 2011, my Department assumed responsibility from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation for making redundancy payments from the Social Insurance Fund. There are two types of redundancy payment made from the fund i.e. 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.

The number of redundancy claims and the expenditure for each of the years from 2002 to 2010 are set out in the attached tabular statement. It is not possible to provide an accurate projection of the number of redundancies that will arise in 2011 as this will depend on a number of factors, including job stability and the rate of recovery in the economy. I understand that since last March there is a downward trend in incoming redundancy claims and I believe that it is possible to be confident that the number of redundancy claims will continue to decline in 2011. Overall, new redundancy claims received in 2010 amounted to 58,731 – a fall of just over 24% on 2009 when 77,001 new claims were lodged. The backlog of claims on hands decreased by some 16,000 in the past 12 months from a high of 41,249 in December 2009 to 25,167 at the end of December, 2010.

Statutory Redundancies for years 2002 to 2010