Irish Ferries gets rebate over
redundant workers
 Taxpayers
will have to contribute as much as 6million to the 33.2million bill run
up by Irish Ferries in its decision to make 447 workers redundant and
replace them with cheaper labour.
The Irish Government is obliged to give the ferry firm a rebate as its
redundancy payouts were above the statutory minimum of two weeks’
pay for every year served.
The decision also means workers will not have to pay tax on their redundancy
settlements.
Most of the 447 staff who were replaced by eastern European workers
received 100,000.
Government ministers are believed to be privately fuming over having to
pay the company the rebate — but they were compelled to under the
1967 Redundancy Act.
Irish Ferries offered workers four to five weeks of pay for every year
of service leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill for 60 per cent of the
cost of every week’s pay in excess of a minimum of two weeks.
An aide to Trade Minister Micheál Martin confirmed the taxpayer
would have to pay at least ¤4.5million to Irish Ferries although
the figure could be as high as ¤6million.
They said: “We sent this matter to the Attorney-General’s
legal people to look at how we could stop paying this money but legally
speaking Irish Ferries is entitled to it.”
The amount of rebate has yet to be calculated exactly as civil servants
will have to go through each of the 447 employee’s payouts to work
out the final sum.
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