Minister rules out changes to legislation on redundancy

The Minister of State for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mr Tony Killeen, ruled out changes in the labour law on redundancy.

He said there were adequate protections in the Redundancy and Unfair Dismissals Acts. "Severance terms are a matter for negotiation between employers and employees," he added.

"However, there are conditions for such arrangements to qualify for funding under the Redundancy Payments Acts."

He added that under the statutory redundancy payments scheme, where an employee was immediately replaced in the same job by another employee, whether from another country or not, a statutory redundancy situation was not deemed to arise.

In any such situation, the employees concerned, who felt they had been unfairly displaced in their employment, could then take a case to the Employment Appeals Tribunal.

"There are no distinctions as to employment conditions between Irish and non-Irish workers," said Mr Killeen. "All labour law on the statute book in Ireland applies to non-national workers working in this country in the same way as it applies to Irish workers."

He added that if a non-national worker felt he or she was being treated by his or her employer in a way which breached any of this employee protection legislation, it would be open to him or her to refer their case for adjudication to a quasi-judicial body or person such as a Rights Commissioner, the Labour Court or the Employment Appeals Tribunal. Mr Killeen was replying to the Labour spokesman, Mr Brendan Howlin, who said there was a challenge posed to Ireland and employment in the Republic by the yellow packing of Irish jobs.

"It is not a matter of redundancy payments, because where a worker is satisfied to accept a redundancy package, where that worker is replaced by someone from a new member-state, and where the terms and conditions of the new job are well below the terms enjoyed by the previous occupier of the job, it poses a real and substantial threat to jobs across the economy," he added.

Mr Killeen said there were seven substantive pieces of legislation already on the statute book. He said tried and tested procedures had been used successfully in a great number of disputes over a long period.