An employee with two years' continuous service dismissed on grounds of redundancy is entitled to a statutory minimum of two weeks’ pay per year of service plus one bonus week, capped at €600 per week. In recent years, many employees made redundant have had to settle for this minimum payment and the recent reduction of the state rebate on the lump sum available to employers from 60% to 15% is unlikely to have helped this situation. Nonetheless, redundancy packages with better terms are often offered, whether by virtue of a trade union/employer agreement, custom and practice or contractual negotiation.

However, an employer proposing such arrangements needs to be vigilant that they are not offered in a discriminatory manner. The first