Irish Fertiliser Industry (IFI) workers are to receive interim redundancy payments amounting to €5,000 per worker (or 3 months pay if lower), according to the Minister for Trade and Commerce, Mr Michael Ahern.
The Minister announced the payments would be made from next Monday and would not affect entitlements to statutory amounts.
He also stated that all statutory entitlements such as statutory redundancy, minimum notice, holiday pay and arrears in wages would also be paid "in full".
The announcement comes following protests in Dublin yesterday by some 300 workers and workers' representatives who are seeking to re-institute an original agreement of five weeks redundancy plus ten per cent of wages per year worked, which was in place before the company went into liquidation.
The value of the amounts announced today are estimated at €11m and when combined with the €24.5m which is being provided by shareholders on an ex-gratia basis would amount to a total of over €35m which would be available for payment to workers.
This falls €20m short of the €55m estimated yesterday by workers representatives to be the amount required to satisfy the 620 workers who lost their jobs as a result of the company's closure.
The Minister said all documents would be ready on Monday for discussion with the employees and for submission to the Department.
