Committee Reports > List of Committees > Seanad > 1970 > Select Committee on Statutory Instruments > Report No. 01 - Statutory Instrument [1]

APPENDIX I.

Redundancy (Redundancy Appeals Tribunal) (Amendment) Regulations, 1969 (S.I. No. 26 of 1969).

An Rúnaí,

An Roinn Saothair.

I am directed by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments to refer to Article 2 of the Redundancy (Redundancy Appeals Tribunal) (Amendment) Regulations, 1969 [S.I. No. 26 of 1969], authorising the payment by the Tribunal of expenses to essential witnesses appearing before it.

The Committee notes that the regulations are expressed to be made under the authority of Section 39(19) of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967 paragraph (g) of which enables the Minister for Labour to make regulations providing for the award by the Redundancy Appeals Tribunal of “costs and expenses and the payment of such awards.”

The Committee wishes to obtain the observations of your Department on whether section 39(19)(g) can be taken to authorise payments being made from the Redundancy Fund in the absence of any reference to the Fund in the text.

Cléireach an Roghchoiste.

17 Aibreán, 1969.

Cléireach an Roghchoiste,

Seanad Éireann.

I am directed by the Minister for Labour to refer further to your minute of 17 Aibreán 1969 concerning Article 2 of the Redundancy (Redundancy Appeals Tribunal) (Amendment) Regulations, 1969 [S.I. No. 26 of 1969] which authorises the payment to essential witnesses appearing before the Tribunal of expenses for loss of remunerative time.

The Minister has been advised that as section 39(19)(g), which empowers him to make regulations providing for payment of awards of costs and expenses, contains no qualification as to the source of the payment it is open to him to provide for the payment from any source which he considers appropriate. He had decided that the Redundancy Fund is the appropriate source and, in the absence of any provision in the empowering section expressly prohibiting either such a decision or the resort to the Fund for such a purpose, it is considered that the relevant provision in paragraph 2 of S.I. No. 26 of 1969 is intra vires the section.

The Minister has been advised further that a payment provided for by regulations made under section 39(19)(g), is properly a payment made in accordance with the Act. In this connection attention is drawn to section 26(1) of the Act, where a comparatively loose wording (“out of which payments shall be made in accordance with this Act”) has been used for payments out of the Fund, in contrast with the stricter wording (in the same section) relating to payments into the Fund.

24 Meitheamh, 1969.