The Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) is one of the front-line services directly affected by the current turbulence in the labour market. The Tribunal hears claims under 18 separate pieces of legislation. Some claims, like Unfair Dismissal cases, are complex and can take up to 4 days. Between 2007 and 2009, the number of claims coming to the Tribunal trebled. While there has been a slight (7%) decrease in new claims lodged in 2010, the large volume of claims has had an impact on case processing timeframes.
I am informed that the longest recorded waiting periods at the end of December ranged from 54 weeks to 77 weeks. In the case of hearings concerning redundancy claims, the range was between 25 weeks and 65 weeks. These figures can be somewhat misleading. The Tribunal conducts hearings in about 36 locations. Where the number of cases is relatively small, the Tribunal may wait until a sufficient number of cases is on hand to make a visit worthwhile. In such areas, 5 days of Hearings may reduce the "waiting time" in the area concerned by 30 to 40 weeks.
I understand that the Tribunal targets areas with the longest waiting period and highest level of claims outstanding, within the resources it has currently available. Efficiencies introduced have increased the Tribunal's output. Over 6,000 claims were processed between January and the end of December 2010, which is more than double the number of cases processed in 2007.
A business process review of the Tribunal is being conducted to find further efficiencies. I am also making additional staff available to the Tribunal within the next few weeks with a view to enabling it to increase the number of Hearings in Dublin, and also to establish a specialist Division for the hearing of redundancy-related cases. In a recent pilot project in Cork, the temporary deployment of an extra Division there, with a special focus on redundancy-related cases, allowed the waiting-time for such cases to be reduced from 44.5 weeks to 19.5 weeks.