The position is that the company concerned made 153 workers at its factory redundant mostly in December 2002 and January 2003. The company paid them their statutory redundancy lump sum entitlements plus some extra statutory amounts. My Department has repaid the company its entitlement to a 60% rebate of the statutory amount.
I understand the workers and their representatives feel they lost out on payment of the new enhanced statutory redundancy lump sum by virtue of the fact that the Redundancy Payments Act 2003 was not backdated. The clear legal advice to me from the Office of the Attorney General is that it is not legally allowable to place a retrospective requirement on employers to make additional enhanced payments. In this particular case the workers were made redundant and paid their entitlements towards the end of last year and early this year, but the new enhanced redundancy rates were subsequently agreed with the social partners and given legislative effect by the Oireachtas with effect from 25 May last, when I signed the required commencement order. I regret that the workers concerned and other workers have not been able to benefit from the increased redundancy payments. However, I cannot change the legal position nor can I make special legislative provisions for any particular group of persons.
A further 13 employees were made redundant without notice from the company concerned on 26 June 2003. I am pleased that these employees benefited from the new redundancy rates and were paid directly from the social insurance fund. A total of €48,835 has been paid to the liquidator under the insolvency payments scheme for arrears of holiday pay and minimum notice payments on behalf of 17 employees.
Following the redundancies in Castlecomer, a Castlecomer area employment advisory forum has been established. The forum is chaired by the county manager and has local and State agency representation. A business development executive has been recruited and employed by the county enterprise board with support from Enterprise Ireland and FÁS. A business development action plan for the Castlecomer area has been drawn up and a work programme has been agreed. One to one interviews have taken place with the redundant workers to identify employment and training needs. Training courses have been provided in information technology, forklift driving and planning for the future.
