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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 24 Apr 1997

Vol. 478 No. 3

Adjournment Debate. - Irish Life Dispute.

I wish to raise the matter of up to 400 Irish Life employees who have been out of work for over ten weeks. Not alone are they out of work, they are not in receipt of any payments apart from a stipend of £30 a week from their union. Most of them are married and have commitments, for example, mortgages, and most of them have children and the ongoing costly financial obligations that a family brings.

The Minister for Finance has a golden share retained in Irish Life which brings with it a moral imperative to directly intervene if things are going radically wrong, and they plainly are. I find it strange that yesterday we had the launch of an antipoverty strategy while at the same time a huge number of people have been out of work and are in receipt of only £30 a week. I have been engaging with the Minister for Enterprise and Employment about this matter for a very long time to get him to intervene and do something. It is fine to have strategies about everything, but the everyday strategy of the Government is to ignore the plight of this great number of people.

There must be a reason that number of people would stay out of work for so long. In previous times one Minister and then another made special arrangements for workers in Dunnes Stores and workers in the Irish Press. In particular regulations were drafted to enable those people to obtain social welfare benefits.

I am glad a Minister from the Department of Social Welfare is here to give me a direct response. I put it to him that in a country in which the Government says everybody is doing well, there are huge numbers who are not. In this case there are between 350 and 400 employees who have had only £30 a week to live on for the past ten weeks, people with homes, obligations and families. Can special arrangements and regulations be put in place to enable those employees to receive social welfare benefits to help them to keep body and soul together? In the wider governmental context, it is a disgrace that ten weeks have gone by and each Government Minister to whom I have addressed the issue has said that it is not his business, that he will not intervene or do anything, and these are Ministers in a Government supposedly committed to helping those in difficulty.

I thank Deputy O'Rourke and the Chair for affording me an opportunity to speak on this matter.

Social welfare legislation provides that, as a general rule, persons involved in a trade dispute are not entitled to receive unemployment payments for the duration of the dispute. Persons whose employment may be affected by the dispute but who are not participating in or directly interested in it are exempt from this disqualification.

At the onset of the dispute between the Manufacturing Science & Finance Trade Union and Irish Life Assurance PLC my Department was in contact with the union and the company in relation to the position of the workers.

An application from an employee of the company for unemployment benefit was selected as a "test" case and submitted to a deciding officer. This was done with the agreement of the workers and their representatives and is a practical way of obtaining an early and uniform decision on all applications. On Tuesday 18 February 1997 the deciding officer determined that the applicant had lost his employment by reason of a stoppage of work which was due to a trade dispute and was, accordingly, disqualified from receipt of payment for as long as the stoppage of work continued.Any person who has been disqualified for benefit may appeal the decision to an appeals officer. The decision was not appealed in this case.

Social Welfare legislation also provides, however, that a person involved in a trade dispute who is dissatisfied with the decision in their case may apply for an adjudication of the matter to the Social Welfare Tribunal. The tribunal investigates cases where it is alleged that a person was unreasonably deprived of his or her employment by an employer who failed or refused to utilise the negotiating machinery normally available for the settlement of disputes. Having taken into account all the circumstances of the stoppage of work and the trade dispute which caused it, the tribunal may decide that a person was unreasonably deprived of his or her employment and, notwithstanding the decision of the deciding officer or appeals officer, may decide that the person is qualified to receive an unemployment payment.

Following an amendment which the Minister introduced in 1996, a person may seek an adjudication by the tribunal directly following the decision of a deciding officer and without the necessity for an appeal. This procedure was followed in this case. An application for an adjudication by the tribunal in this case was made on 20 March 1997. An adjudication hearing has been scheduled for 22 May 1997 and all interested parties have been notified.

In the meantime, it is open to any dependants of employees affected to claim payment of a supplementary welfare allowance from the health board.

The Deputy asked that special measures be taken. The procedure being followed in this case is identical to the procedure followed in the other cases. The only thing that concerns us is the time lag in its determination.

Can the Minister of State bring that forward?

The Minister and I have discussed the matter and if there is anything we can do to bring forward the date, we will do so.

I would appreciate if that could be done because there is a two months' time lag.

There is. I should also mention that a number of families are currently in receipt of a supplementary welfare allowance.

The Dáil adjourned at 4.30 p.m. until 1 p.m. on Tuesday, 29 April 1997.

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