The Government is expected to announce significant improvements in the statutory redundancy scheme shortly.
The current entitlement is only one week's pay per year of service for workers aged over 41, and half a week for younger people. The new rates are likely to be at least double the existing ones.
The move comes in the wake of 19,828 people losing their jobs last year, the highest figure since 1993. In 2000, there were 13,316 redundancies.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and its largest affiliate, SIPTU, have been pressing for improvements for the past six months.
SIPTU president Mr Des Geraghty called on the Government to make "substantial improvements" in the scheme again yesterday. Statutory entitlements have not increased since the Redundancy Payments Act was passed in 1967.
SIPTU wants the basic entitlement to be increased to three weeks of service for all workers, regardless of age.
The Government is understood to have told the union that it would be introducing improvements very shortly. These are likely to be announced by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, over the coming days.
Mr Geraghty said yesterday that action was urgently needed because of the large number of job losses. He also wanted the service threshold of two years reduced to one year because many of those being laid off were younger workers who do not qualify even for the current rates.
The Government can afford large improvements, says Mr Geraghty.
"Prior to the last Budget there was a surplus of €1.4 billion in the social insurance fund. That fund is the appropriate source of finance to improve statutory redundancy payments and would be money well spent at this time.
"The Minister for Finance, of course, raided that fund for €635 million in the Budget but estimates that there will still be a surplus of €1.2 billion at the end of this year."
While official statistics indicate a 49 per cent increase in redundancies last year, Mr Geraghty said "the actual number of job losses may be even greater than this because official statistics do not account for redundancies at many small firms".
He said the rate of redundancies was rising, with the figure for last December 60 per cent higher than for December 2000.
"The Government's estimates for this year allow for an increase in redundancy payments expenditure of 82 per cent, indicating that the position will deteriorate at an even faster rate.
"And yet the sum total of that provision for redundancy payments expenditure comes to only €51 million.
"A significant increase in the level of payments would represent but a very small proportion of the social insurance fund surplus."