THOUSANDS OF people who have lost their jobs face delays of almost a year before they receive their statutory redundancy payments due to a huge backlog.
New figures published yesterday show that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation is working to clear a backlog of 39,000 redundancy claims. The average delay for rebate claims submitted by employers is six to eight months. However, the delay to lump sum payments made to individuals whose firms have closed down can be almost a year.
People made redundant by a company that is unwilling or unable to pay statutory redundancy must take their case to the Employment Appeals Tribunal to obtain a ruling that they are entitled to a lump sum.
This has dramatically increased the number of claims made to the tribunal and is leading to lengthy delays in processing claims.
In 2009, the tribunal received 9,458 claims, but could only deal with 4,680 of them.
One individual who contacted The Irish Timesyesterday said his firm had closed in July 2009 and he submitted a claim to the tribunal in September. But he said he still has no date for a hearing.
“I’m owed €7,000 in redundancy. I was made redundant and I am only working part-time now. It is really tough on my family. Isn’t a father meant to be the provider for the family?” said Finbarr Archer, who lives in from Cork.
In answer to a parliamentary question, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation Dara Calleary said processing times had extended due to a rise in redundancy claims. But he said his department was working hard to reduce the processing times for claims by reassigning 26 staff members, establishing a telephone service to deal with calls. He said his department was also actively engaged in efforts to secure 16 additional staff in 2010.
The department processed 50,664 redundancy claims in 2009, up 70 per cent on the number of claims processed in 2008. It made redundancy payments totalling €336 million.
Fine Gael TD Deirdre Clune, who submitted the parliamentary question, said more resources needed to be allocated to reduce the massive backlog in cases.
“The thousands of people now awaiting decisions from the Employment Appeals Tribunal, many of them on redundancy issues, are now waiting over 46 weeks for a decision and this needs to be addressed,” she said.
The department also revealed that it is seeking to recover €78.7 million from firms, which were either unable or unwilling to make redundancy payments when they laid off staff. The department seeks to recover 100 per cent of redundancy payments paid out of the social insurance fund when employers simply refuse to pay redundancy in the first instance.
When companies are able to prove that they cannot pay the redundancy lump sum due to liquidations the department seeks to recover 40 per cent of the amount paid out as this is the company’s share of the liability of the employees statutory payment.
In 2009, provisional figures show the department recovered €3.6 million from companies under this process. In 2008 it recovered €948,606. The number of statutory redundancy claims received in 2009 was 77,001, up from 40,459 a year earlier.