Tribunal heard that if fishermen won right to redundancy, State could face a ‘slew of cases’
Payments to fishermen left out of work under the State’s Brexit scrappage scheme do not replace their statutory redundancy entitlements, the Workplace Relations Commission has ruled.
In claims under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967, the workers’ trade union representative, Michael O’Brien of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, said the statutory redundancy sums being sought were “chicken feed” compared to the €2 million paid out to the vessel owner by the public under the Brexit Voluntary Permanent Cessation Scheme.
The legal submission added that when Mr O’Brien, the trade union’s representative, phoned the owner of the firm asking about statutory redundancy payments for its members, he was “met with obscenities” and that a later email “went unanswered”. He said it was envisaged by the report that such payments would be “in lieu of redundancy, not in addition to redundancy payments”.