Redundancy Payment Amendment
The Redundancy Payments (Amendment) Bill 2022 was published on the 21st of January 2022. The legislation will amend the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 to provide payments from the Departments of Social Protection to employees who were laid off during the pandemic. (13th March 2020 – 30 September 2021) Currently, periods of lay-off in the final three years of services do not count as a reckonable service. They are excluded from the amount of the statutory redundancy payment.
The Bill seeks to give employees who have lost out on their reckonable service while they were laid off during the pandemic a special payment of up to a maximum of €1,860 tax-free. This aims to close the gap in employees’ redundancy entitlements and ensure that the employee being made redundant will receive the same total redundancy payment as if they had not been laid off due to Covid-19.
To qualify for this entitlement, an employee must qualify as normal for a statutory redundancy payment. Employers may apply for the payment on behalf of the employee to the Department of Social Welfare. If the employer refuses to do the application for the employee all necessary information and documentation must be available to the employee. The amount of payment will be determined by the difference between the lump sum to which the employee would have been entitled to on redundancy if they had not been laid off due to Covid-19 and the amount to which the employee is entitled to be made redundant. Employers need to ensure that all their records in relation to any layoffs during the period (13th March 2020 – 30 September 2021) are up to date.
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