Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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74. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question No. 31 of 3 March 2021, the current position in relation to whether the period of time an employee who has been on the temporary wage subsidy scheme or the pandemic unemployment payment will be taken into consideration as part of their tenure for redundancy packages; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [63120/21]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Where an employee is laid off for periods during their last three years of employment, those periods do not constitute reckonable service for the purposes of redundancy calculations. In light of the extensive periods of lay-off some people will have experienced during the pandemic emergency period, this may have a significant impact on their redundancy entitlement if they are made redundant within the next three years.

Time spent on the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme is not considered to be a lay-off period and therefore does not affect an employee's redundancy entitlement..

On 27th October, Government approved the drafting of a Bill to enable an exceptional additional payment to be made from the Social Insurance Fund to employees who were laid off as a result of pandemic-related restrictions and are subsequently made redundant. The General Scheme of the Bill underwent pre-legislative scrutiny on the 1st of December, and the Bill will be advanced in the first quarter of 2022.

The Department of Social Protection is working on the necessary administrative systems to provide for the application and payment processes, and is liaising closely with officials in my Department.