Redundancy Payments Act, 1967

General right to redundancy payment.

7.—(1) An employee, if he is dismissed by his employer by reason of redundancy or is laid off or kept on short-time for the minimum period, shall, subject to this Act, be entitled to the payment of moneys which shall be known (and are in this Act referred to) as redundancy payment provided—

(a) he has been employed for the requisite period, and

(b) he was an employed contributor in employment which was insurable for all benefits under the Social Welfare Acts, 1952 to 1966, immediately before the date of the termination of his employment, or had ceased to be ordinarily employed in employment which was so insurable in the period of two years ending on that date.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), an employee who is dismissed shall be taken to be dismissed by reason of redundancy if the dismissal is attributable wholly or mainly to—

(a) the fact that his employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was employed by him, or has ceased or intends to cease, to carry on that business in the place where the employee was so employed, or

(b) the fact that the requirements of that business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind, or for employees to carry out work of a particular kind in the place where he was so employed have ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (1), an employee shall be taken as having been laid off or kept on short-time for the minimum period if he has been laid off or kept on short-time for a period of four or more consecutive weeks, or for a period of six or more weeks which are not consecutive but which fall within a period of thirteen consecutive weeks.

(4) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, where an employee who has been serving a period of apprenticeship training with an employer under an apprenticeship agreement is dismissed within one month after the end of that period, that employee shall not, by reason of that dismissal, be entitled to redundancy payment.

(5) In this section “requisite period” means a period of 208 weeks' continuous employment (within the meaning of Schedule 3) of the employee by the employer who dismissed him, laid him off or kept him on short-time, but excluding any period of employment with that employer before the employee had attained the age of 16 years.