Committee Reports > List of Committees > Seanad > 1971 > Select Committee on Statutory Instruments (appointed 10th December 1969) > Report No. 02 (1971) - Statutory Instruments [6]

APPENDIX III.

Redundancy (Rebates and Weekly Payments) (Amendment) Regulations, 1969

(S.I. No. 134 of 1969).

An Rúnaí,

An Roinn Saothair.

I am directed by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments to state that it has been considering the Redundancy (Rebates and Weekly Payments) (Amendment) Regulations, 1969 (S.I. No. 134 of 1969).

The Committee notes that section 36 of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967 empowers the Minister for Labour to make regulations “requiring an employer entitled to a rebate to make a claim therefor and prescribing the time within which such a claim is to be made”. The Committee also notes that the Redundancy (Rebates and Weekly Payments) Regulations, 1968 provided that a claim for a rebate shall be made “before the expiration of six months from the date on which the employer made the relevant lump sum payment” and that this provision is now amended by Article 2 (a) of the present order which authorises the Minister, in certain circumstances, to allow a claim for a rebate to be made “within such further period as the Minister may in any particular case or class of cases allow”.

It seems to the Committee that the regulations under reference allow for the determination administratively in respect of the time within which a claim for a rebate is to be made which, it appears, the parent statute contemplates should be prescribed by regulations. The Committee, therefore, has to consider whether the Regulations constitute a sub-delegation not contemplated by the parent statute and to assist it in its deliberations it would welcome an explanatory memorandum from your Department.

C. P. Ó BRIAIN,

Cléireach an Roghchoiste.

15 Eanáir, 1970.

Cléireach an Roghchoiste,

Seanad Éireann.

I am directed by the Minister for Labour to refer further to your minute of 15 Eanáir, 1970 and to enclose, as requested, an explanatory memorandum on the question raised by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments concerning the Redundancy (Rebates and Weekly Payments) (Amendment) Regulations, 1969 (S.I. No. 134 of 1969).

20 Aibreán, 1970.

Memorandum from the Department of Labour.

1. The Minister for Labour accepts the view of the Select Committee that on a strict interpretation of Section 36 (2) (a) of the Redundancy Payments Act the time limit within which a rebate claim can be made ought to be ascertainable from regulations made under that subsection.

2. The Minister, wishes, however, to draw the attention of the Select Committee to the wide power contained in Section 36 (1) which provides that he may “make regulations for giving effect to this Part” and to the fact that the subsidiary power contained in Section 36 (2) is therein expressly stated to be “without prejudice to the generality of sub-Section (1)”.

3. The Redundancy Payments Act, 1967, is one designed mainly to confer financial benefits on certain persons, or classes of persons. In the long title it is described as “an Act to provide for the making by employers of payments to employees in respect of redundancy” and the long title goes on “to establish a Redundancy Fund”, and “to provide for payments to be made out of that Fund to employers and employees”. The Minister has been advised that, having regard to the long title of the Act, a flexible interpretation of the power conferred on him by the Oireachtas in Section 36 is justified. Paragraph 3 (c) of the Redundancy (Rebates and Weekly Payments) Regulations, 1968 (S.I. No. 11 of 1968) specified that rebate claims should be made before the expiration of six months from the date on which the employer made the relevant lump-sum payment. This provision gave rise to administrative difficulty and but for the amendment contained in S.I No. 134 of 1969 some benefits intended by the Oireachtas would not have accrued to some employers.

4. In support of the construction advanced in paragraph 3 above, of the Minister’s powers, attention is drawn to Section 30 (4) of Redundancy Payments Act, 1965 enacted by the United Kingdom Parliament. Under this the corresponding regulations “may in particular (a) require any claim for a rebate to be made at or before a time prescribed by the regulations;”. In purported exercise of this power, which contains no general provision similar to Section 36(1) of the Irish Act, the appropriate Minister, by paragraph 5 (1) of the Redundancy Payments Rebates Regulations 1965 (No. 1893 of 1965), required a claim for a rebate to “be made … before the expiration of six months … or within such further period as the Minister may … allow.” No objection to these regulations was advanced when the body in the United Kingdom corresponding to the Seanad Committee considered the above U.K. regulations.

5. The Minister for Labour submits, therefore, that the provision which permits the acceptance of rebate claims made outside the six month period originally prescribed in paragraph 3 (c) of S.I. No. 11 of 1968 “within such further period as the Minister may … allow” does not constitute a sub-delegation of authority not contemplated by the parent statute. The amended provision also facilitates a more equitable administration of the rebate provisions of the statute.