Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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36. To ask the Minister for Social Protection further to Parliamentary Question No. 110 of 5 March 2013, in which she stated that a person must be employed for 104 weeks before they have a reasonable attachment to employment in order to receive a redundancy payment, her plans regarding a potential reduction in this criteria; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18833/13]

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. 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 seeks to recover. Lump sum payments made by the Department are paid from the Social Insurance Fund.

In order to be eligible for a statutory redundancy payment, an employee must: 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. In addition, the employee must have at least 104 weeks continuous service, with the employer who is making the statutory redundancy payment. This ensures that the employee has had a reasonable attachment to that employer. I have no plans to change this requirement.