High redundancy figures prompt benefits plea

The second highest level of redundancies since 1984 were recorded last year, new figures showed today.

With 24,969 employees losing their jobs in 2004, the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed called on the Government to reintroduce a pay related benefits scheme.

Eric Conroy, INOU general secretary, claimed welfare payments needed to be increased to match the contributions made by workers during their careers.

“Redundancy can have a devastating impact both on the individual and their family. The loss of a job and the consequential reduction in income can be traumatic,” he said.

“Individuals who lose their job often mistakenly believe that social welfare unemployment payments are pay related."

Mr Conroy said a sense of complacency had crept into Irish society with the misconception that there is a job for everyone.

And he warned that manufacturing firms had been haemorrhaging jobs for the last four years, with one company announcing 100 posts would be cut one week and another firm preparing to axe 200 workers another week.

The latest figures from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment showed 24,969 workers were made redundant in 2004, just a few hundred short of the 20-year high of 25,874 recorded in 2003. These figures compared to losses of 10,733 in 2000 and 16,668 in 2001.

The current personal rate of Unemployment Benefit is 148.80 per week. Mr Conroy stressed that such a low benefit rate would come as quite a shock to people who had worked for many years and contributed to the PRSI system.

He said people who found themselves unemployed would be surprised to see the large contributions they had made down the years would not be matched by benefits.

“With such high levels of redundancy it is vital that the Government look at re-introducing Pay Related Social Insurance,” he said.

Mr Conroy also warned the redundancy statistics often did not recognise the actual level of job losses the state had suffered.

“It is important to recognise that the redundancy level in Ireland is actually worse than the figures portray,” he said.

“These figures do not include employees with less than two years eligible service with an employer, employees who are under 16 years of age or who have reached the qualifying age for old age pension. Therefore the figures do not give a true reflection of the scale of job losses.”