Sinn Féin TD for Dublin South West Seán Crowe has called for the Government to support a Sinn Féin Bill which seeks to ensure a fair calculation of redundancy entitlements for workers who have spent time on the PUP.

Teachta Crowe said:

“When the Pandemic Unemployment Payment was introduced last year, redundancy entitlements were suspended for people temporarily laid off.

“However, no provision was made for workers time in service for the period when they were in receipt of the payment.

“As it currently stands, due to a loophole in the law, workers could lose out on significant sums of money because time spent on the PUP will not count when calculating entitlements.

“This is not the case with other social protection contributions towards benefits such as Maternity Benefit or the State Contributory Pension, where you will be treated as if you have been paying insurance contributions based on the social insurance class you were paying before you stopped working.

“This is why the Redundancy Payments (Lay-off, Short Time and Calculation of Reckonable Service) Bill which Sinn Féin have brought forward is important as it aims to address this situation and ensure that workers do not have a lost year or 15 months when it comes to redundancy entitlements.

“This Bill seeks to boost workers’ rights by ensuring that time spent by workers on lay off and short time, such as time in receipt of the PUP, is calculated as reckonable service in relation to the calculation of redundancy entitlements.

“Therefore, if a worker needs to access to their redundancy entitlements, this Bill will mean time spent on the PUP during 2020 and 2021 will be counted as reckonable service, and it will ensure a fair redundancy payment.”