Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason a person must be in continuous employment for 104 weeks to qualify for a redundancy payment. [11384/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The purpose of the redundancy payments scheme is to compensate workers, under the Redundancy Payments Acts, for the loss of their jobs by reason of redundancy. Under the scheme, an eligible employee is entitled to two weeks’ pay for every year of service, plus a bonus week, subject to a gross weekly salary ceiling of €600.

It is the employer’s responsibility to pay statutory redundancy payments in the first instance. Where an employer can prove to the satisfaction of the Department that it is unable to pay statutory redundancy to its eligible employees the Department will make lump sum payments directly to those employees. Such payments raise a debt against the employer which the Department will seek to recover. Lump sum payments made by the Department are from the Social Insurance Fund.

In order to be eligible for a statutory redundancy payment, an employee must: have at least two years continuous service; be in employment which is insurable under the Social Welfare Acts; be over the age of 16; and have been made redundant as a result of a genuine redundancy situation meaning that the job no longer exists and he/she is not replaced. These conditions are intended to ensure that an employee has had a reasonable attachment to employment before qualifying for a statutory redundancy payment.