Redundant staff forced to wait months for entitlements

WORKERS of bankrupt employers are being forced to wait months for statutory entitlements such as wage arrears and holiday pay.

According to figures from Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Billy Kelleher, claims for the payments, made under the Insolvency Payments Scheme, have increased by more than 100% in 2008.

Fine Gael spokesperson on regional development and affairs Paul Connaughton, who raised the matter in the Dáil last week, said a constituent of his has been waiting since November to be paid.

“It is bad enough to lose your job, but then to wait months for payments you thought were automatically there, my constituent does not like it one bit,” he said.

According to the Galway-east TD, the minister said his department needs to get answers from the receiver of the particular company before it makes payments.

“This is cold comfort to people waiting. This individual made his applications on November 21 and is still waiting for his payments.”

Under the Insolvency Payments Scheme, workers whose employer become legally insolvent are entitled to claim — normally through the liquidator or receiver — arrears of pay, holiday pay, pay in lieu of statutory notice and other entitlements that may be owed to them by their employer.

Payments are made from the social insurance fund. Labour spokesperson on social and family affairs Roisin Shortall said it was “unforgivable” that people were waiting so long.

“This is an issue that is arising in a lot of government payments now due to the increasing numbers who are claiming,” she said. “People are at their lowest ebb, the relevant departments should be in a position to deal with it.”

According to the minister, measures on staffing resources have been taken to address the situation.

Meanwhile, there has been a 143% increase in redundancies on the corresponding month last year, the worst on record.

According to ISME chief executive Mark Fielding, the country is in a state of emergency, with 330 redundancies a day being announced: “This crisis requires immediate and real action to be taken to stop this flood of job losses.

“The inactivity of the Government is appalling and calls into question its policy of consensus with the social partners, when strong direct leadership is needed.”

A spokesperson for the department said the volume of redundancy claims had impacted on claim processing times, but statutory redundancy payments were being processed within six weeks.

Unless there were issues to be answered by the receiver of an insolvent company, those payments were being made within two months, the spokesperson added.