Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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47. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment what actions he and officials in his Department are undertaking to ensure that appropriate redundancy pay is paid by an organisation (details supplied) to 38 of its employees at Raheen, Limerick; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11910/23]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I extend my sympathies to the former workers who have been made redundant. I fully appreciate how difficult the situation is for those involved and for their families. At the time of the job losses concerned, dedicated staff in the Department of Social Protection worked directly with the employees to ensure they received their entitlements and other supports swiftly in order to avoid any further distress.

By law, it is the employer’s responsibility to pay statutory redundancy to eligible workers. In situations where an employer is genuinely unable to pay statutory redundancy entitlements due to financial difficulties or insolvency, the State provides a safety net and may make the statutory redundancy payments on the employer’s behalf from the Social Insurance Fund.

However, negotiations on enhanced redundancy packages over and above the statutory entitlement are entirely a voluntary matter between employers and workers. The State has no role in this matter.

For its part, the State provides the industrial relations dispute settlement mechanisms, that is, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and the Labour Court, to support parties in their efforts to resolve their differences. I must emphasise that Ireland’s system of industrial relations is essentially voluntary in nature. The responsibility for the resolution of industrial disputes between employers and workers rests in the first instance with the employer, the workers and their representatives.

The WRC and the Labour Court are independent offices of the Department and recommendations arising from the WRC and the Labour Court are not legally binding. The State cannot compel a party to comply with a Labour Court Recommendation and as Minister I cannot intervene in this matter.

I strongly encourage parties to engage in the industrial relations process in a constructive manner and to comply with any recommendations arising from this process. All parties should respect the industrial relations mechanism of the State, which works extremely well and effectively in most cases.