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Redundancy Payments

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 4 March 2021

Thursday, 4 March 2021

Questions (153)

Paul Kehoe

Question:

153. Deputy Paul Kehoe asked the Minister for Social Protection the amount that has been paid into the social fund from employers who have made employees redundant in each of the years 2010 to 2020; the amount in cases in which the State had to pay for each of the years; the number of family homes on which a charge is being placed or executed each year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [12263/21]

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Written answers

The Redundancy Payments Act 1967, as amended, requires employers to make a minimum level of payment to employees in the event of a redundancy. It is the employer’s responsibility to pay redundancy payments to all eligible employees at this minimum rate as provided for under the Act. Policy responsibility for the schemes transferred to the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment on 14th October 2020. While employers are required to notify the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment of the potential for collective redundancies, employers are not required to submit a notification of actual redundancies that have occurred. As a consequence, there is no central record of redundancies each year and consequently no potential to identify levels of PRSI paid by these employers into the Social Insurance Fund (SIF).

Under the Redundancy Payment Scheme, it is only where an employer is unable to pay statutory redundancy due to financial difficulties that an application may be submitted to the Department of Social Protection for the payment of statutory redundancy entitlements from the SIF. Details of the number of applications received since 2010 and the associated costs under the Redundancy Payments Scheme is shown below.

When a redundancy payment is made from the SIF, the employer is notified of the amount owed and a debt is recorded for recovery from the employer as provided for under Sections 32 and 43 of the Redundancy Payments Act. A recovery plan takes into account the current financial situation of the employer and their capacity to repay the outstanding debt with each case dealt with on its own merits. This includes agreeing arrangements whereby the debt can be recovered by way of instalments over a period of time. The Department of Social Protection has not commenced any enforcement action, nor attempted to take possession of any family home as part of in order to recover outstanding debts to the Social Insurance Fund as a result of payments made under the Redundancy Payments Scheme.

Year

Applications received under the Redundancy Payments Scheme

Redundancy Payments Scheme Expenditure

2010

58,731

€40.86m

2011

49,762

€41.48m

2012

33,072

€134.32m

2013

14,088

€76.59m

2014

6,883

€58.51m

2015

4,333

€32.76m

2016

4,372

€30.99m

2017

3,056

€23.49m

2018

2,845

€18.91m

2019

2,446

€26.82m

2020

4,157

€37.1m* *Estimated Expenditure. 2020 Account not finalised

Note: Applications received from 2010-2013 include applications under the rebate scheme which was discontinued in 2013. The expenditure shown above excludes costs associated with those rebates.

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