Inaccuracies over redundancy payments

PAUL KELLY seems to have misunderstood the implications of the Redundancy Payments Act in the Irish Ferries case (‘Taxpayers face €6m Irish Ferries labour bill’, Irish Examiner, January 13).

While I do not wish to argue the merits of these redundancies and/or payments, it should be noted that Mr Kelly’s assertion that “Irish Ferries is entitled to a 60% Government rebate on redundancy payments made over and above the statutory minimum of two weeks” is incorrect.

Mr Kelly further reports that the taxpayer must “foot the bill for 60% of the cost of every week’s pay in excess of a minimum of two weeks”.