Social Democrats TD and spokesperson for Social Protection, Gary Gannon, has criticised the further suspension of an employee\u2019s legal entitlement to claim redundancy if they have been laid-off or put on reduced hours for a set number of weeks.<\/p>\n
Deputy Gannon said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis decision is a worrying erosion of statutory redundancy rights. Under the Redundancy Payments Act, a worker has the right to apply for redundancy if they have been temporarily laid-off or put on reduced hours and, if after a number of weeks, their employer is not in a position to guarantee them work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis right was suspended when the Covid-19 crisis hit to prevent businesses being hit with a rush of redundancy claims, making it harder for them to survive. In the event of an employer not being able to pay statutory redundancy, the payments are made by the State through the Social Insurance Fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe suspension of this right has already been extended beyond its original date and was supposed to be reinstated on August 10. Now we learn from the Minister that the ban on the right to claim redundancy will remain in place until September 17.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis decision is exceptionally worrying given the recent changes requiring those in receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment to be \u2018genuinely seeking employment\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can workers who were temporarily laid-off be expected to genuinely seek new employment without walking away from their existing jobs and redundancy payments? How can they seek new employment if not technically unemployed?<\/p>\n
\u201cI pointed out these discrepancies to the Minister for Social Protection last week but received no satisfactory answer from her. Workers need urgent clarity from the Government on this.\u201d<\/p>\n
August 5, 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Social Democrats TD and spokesperson for Social Protection, Gary Gannon, has criticised the further suspension of an employee\u2019s legal entitlement to claim redundancy if they have been laid-off or put on reduced hours for a set number of weeks. Deputy Gannon said: \u201cThis decision is a worrying erosion of statutory redundancy rights. Under the Redundancy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[316,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gary-gannon","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n