Cessation of Prohibition on Employees Claiming Redundancy due to Lay-off and Short Time Working
October 11, 2021
| The Redundancy Payments Acts provide that where an employee is laid-off or put on short-time for more than 4 consecutive weeks or any 6 broken weeks in a 13 week period, the employee is entitled to claim redundancy, assuming they meet the qualifying conditions (i.e. the employee must have 104 weeks continuous employment over the age of 16 with the same employer and be insurable under PRSI Class A (or Class J for employees aged 66 or over, or those earning less than €38 per week)). Lay-off is where the employee does not work at all as there is no work available, whereas Short-time is where the employee earns less than half of his normal weekly wages or works less than half of his normal weekly hours. During the Covid-19 pandemic, emergency legislation was put in place to prohibit employees claiming redundancy due to lay-off or short-time. This prohibition was put in place to protect employers at a time when numerous businesses were forced to close or reduce their business operations because of Covid-19. This prohibition ceases on 30th September 2021. As a result, with effect from 1st October 2021, employees have the right to seek a statutory redundancy payment in these circumstances. – The employee has 4 weeks to submit this claim after the lay-off or short-time ends. Part B of the RP9 Form may be used for this purpose. – The employer has 7 days to either accept the employee’s claim for Redundancy or give the employee counter notice. Where the employer does not give counter notice, the employer is assumed to have accepted the claim for Redundancy. – Where the claim is accepted the employer should pay the employee’s statutory redundancy. – Where the employer gives the employee counter notice, the employer is required to offer the employee a minimum of 13 weeks’ continuous employment (without lay-off or short-time) to commence within 4 weeks of the employee submitting a claim for redundancy. – An employee who claims and receives redundancy in respect of lay-off or short-time is deemed to have voluntarily left his employment and is not entitled to notice under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts. Special Payment for laid-off Workers made Redundant after Pandemic: The Government announced that a special one-off payment will be introduced for employees who are made redundant and have lost reckonable service due to lay-off during the Covid-19 pandemic. Any period of lay-off during the last 3 years of service is not reckonable for redundancy purposes. To prevent employees losing out on reckonable service due to lay-off caused by Covid-19 restrictions, any employee who has been, or who will be made redundant in the next 3 years will be entitled to a one-off payment of up to €1,860 to compensate them for the loss of reckonable service. An employee will have to qualify for redundancy in the first instance to be eligible for this reckonable service payment (i.e. the employee must have 104 weeks continuous employment over the age of 16 with the same employer, be insurable under PRSI Class A (or Class J for employees aged 66 or over, or those earning less than €38 per week)). The Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment and the Department of Social Protection are currently working on drafting legislation and developing the new scheme. It is expected that the application process will open in the first half of 2022, and details on how to apply will be announced at that stage. It is only at the application stage that the Department of Social Protection will be in a position to determine an individual’s eligibility for this payment. Note: This scheme will apply to those employees who were laid-off and in receipt of PUP or a Jobseeker’s payment. Where the employer availed of TWSS or EWSS and continued to pay their employees, this period is counted as reckonable service for calculating statutory redundancy payable by the employer. |
