The government is paying out around €5m a week in re­dundancy rebates to employers to help pay for the thou­- sands of workers they lay off.

The "unprecedented" number of claims swamping the Department of Enterprise had led to eight-month delays in processing applications for rebates made by post and seven months for those made online, according to junior minister Dara Calleary.

The Labour Affairs minister added that while the department has dealt with 26,405 claims for repayments so far this year costing the taxpayer a total of €179m, at the end of August it was facing a backlog of 43,250 claims.

This means the government is looking at a redundancy bill in the region of another €300m on top of the €179m it has paid out so far this year or a total of almost €500m. This ignores claims that will inevitably arrive between now and the end of the year.

All workers are legally entitled to two weeks' pay for every year of service when made redundant. The employer pays the worker but is entitled to a 60% rebate of the cost from the Department of Enterprise. Any redundancy payment above the legal entitlement of two weeks pay per year of service is at the employer's discretion and they do not receive any rebate for such ex gratia payments.

In cases where the company has gone bust and cannot pay its staff, the worker has to apply directly to the department for payments.