Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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249. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her views on the potential for employers to abuse the temporary lay-off situation provision available in legislation to delay or reduce their statutory obligations to employees (details supplied); her plans to address this by way of legislation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15979/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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A lay-off situation arises where an employee's employment ceases by reason of the employer being unable to provide work for which the employee was employed to do, and, where the employer reasonably believes that the cessation of employment will not be permanent and where the employer gives notice to that effect to the employee prior to the cessation. There is no statutory minimum period for the giving of notice of lay-off and no statutory provision governing the maximum period of a lay-off.

Additionally, there is no entitlement to a minimum notice under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts given that a lay-off does not constitute a cessation of employment.

Under the Redundancy Payments Acts, where an employee has been laid off for 4 consecutive weeks or for a broken series of 6 weeks where all 6 weeks occur within a 13-week period, the employee, if he or she so wishes, may claim a redundancy payment by serving written notice to his or her employer.

An employee who claims and receives a redundancy payment due to lay-off is deemed to have left the employment voluntarily and is, therefore, not entitled to notice under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts. However, it is important to bear in mind that statutory redundancy payments are much larger than minimum notice payments. 

The legislation attempts to strike a necessary balance in circumstances where the economic realities may force an employer into temporarily placing employees on short time or lay-off, and in such circumstances, to allow the retention of trained staff rather than making them redundant.  While no employee would wish to be put in a situation of short time or lay-off, it does allow for the possibility of returning to work for that employer, and thus avoid being made redundant or seeking redundancy of their own volition.

It is the intention of this legislation to allow for both sets of circumstances, and to be fair to both employer and employee. It is also important to remember that since 2013 an employer must bear the full cost of a redundancy i.e. it can no longer seek a rebate from the Exchequer.