The Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment has made ‘poor progression’ in handing out lump sum payments owed to employees, according to Deputy Noel Coonan. In September, the redundancy section was processing claims for June 2009. Today the department is still handling claims for the same month.
Deputy Noel Coonan
“Two months on and the Department is still stuck dealing with claims received in June. I accept there has been an exceptional increase in applications lodged over 2009 but with the Government predicting an extra 750,000 people on the dole next year, the Department should be trying harder than ever to significantly reduce waiting times in preparation for this. People are relying greatly on these payments for financial security and they are entitled to be promptly paid their entitlements,” said the Fine Gael TD.
“The recent Budget did not provide a comprehensive strategy to get people back to work. We do not want to be complaining about the queue of over 42,000 people waiting grimly on their redundancy payments. We want to be able to say that people have faced the worst and our economy is recovering but this Government continues to lead us down a bleak path.
Figures released to me through a parliamentary question show the redundancy section is currently processing rebate applications submitted by post from March 2009 and those filed online from April 2009. This means the waiting time is approximately eight to nine months. The Government is not providing an efficient system at a time when recession is biting and people are in desperate need of what is owed to them,” continued Deputy Coonan.
Since January last, the department have processed 45,201 claims. However, there are 42,591 claims still waiting to be processed.
Deputy Coonan has submitted parliamentary questions to Tanáiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan T.D., asking her to outline the number of people in North Tipperary waiting on redundancy payments but the Minister was unable to provide such figures.
The number of incoming redundancy claims is up 96% on the same period last year.
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