Written answer
Redundancy Payments
The Minister said the €600 redundancy-payment cap, unchanged since 2005, would not be increased immediately, citing the need to balance workers’ rights and business viability.
469. Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment if he has plans to review the €600 weekly earnings cap used for calculating statutory redundancy payments which was set over 20 years ago. [65391/26]
Comment on this
The Redundancy Payments Act 1967, as amended, provides for a minimum statutory redundancy payment to eligible employees who are made redundant. An eligible employee is entitled to two weeks' pay for every year of service plus one additional week's pay, with weekly pay capped at €600 per week. The €600 per week salary ceiling has applied since 2005.
Section 4 of Redundancy Payments Act 1979 Act gives the Minister the power to vary the salary ceiling by Regulation and provides that, when setting the salary ceiling for redundancy payments, the Minister must take into account any changes in the average earnings of workers in the transportable goods industries as recorded by the Central Statistics Office. Any regulations are subject to the consent of the Minister for Finance.
The Government is committed to promoting positive working conditions in Ireland. In recent years, Government have introduced a range of measures to assist workers including increases to the National Minimum wage, statutory sick pay, the right to request remote working and an additional public holiday.
There are no immediate plans to increase the salary ceiling for redundancy payments at present. I have kept this matter under regular review.
A range of factors must be carefully balanced in any consideration of an increase to the €600 ceiling. These include the rights of employees to reasonable redundancy payments. However, it is also important to maintain a regulatory environment that allows businesses to remain viable, and, indeed, to thrive. Consultation with other Government Departments, employer and employee representative groups and other relevant stakeholders would also be required.
It is important, in my role as Minister, to have due regard to the overall balance between supporting workers and maintaining a sustainable businesses environment.