RTÉ News has learnt that some Aer Lingus employees may have to refund money to Revenue. The tax authority has queried the validity of an unprecedented redundancy scheme two years ago.
Under the so-called 'leave and return' scheme, 715 staff who left the airline with generous redundancy packages were re-employed within weeks on lower terms and conditions.
Both Aer Lingus and SIPTU have insisted the redundancies are genuine. SIPTU said it was assured by Aer Lingus that the redundancy deal agreed with its members in 2008 had been endorsed by independent legal and tax advisers.
SIPTU assistant industrial organiser, Jason Palmer, said that if any Aer Lingus information turned out to be 'flawed', the airline would have to pay for any losses incurred by the union's members.
Aer Lingus said tonight that the agreement which restructured its ground operations was facilitated by the Labour Relations Commission and subsequently ratified by the Labour Court.
The airline said it 'remains convinced' that the departures of these 715 staff were legitimate redundancies under the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967-2007. 'We continue to engage with the Department of Enterprise Trade and Innovation in relation to this matter,' it said.
The unprecedented 'leave and return' redundancy deal at Aer Lingus had huge implications for the taxpayer. If it qualified as a genuine redundancy, the airline was entitled to a state rebate for part of its redundancy costs - potentially worth millions.
Staff would also get favourable tax treatment of the package called 'top slicing'. But when the DAA sought a similar deal for staff transferring from Terminal One to Terminal Two, Revenue told the company these were not redundancies, because the employees were returning to work for a DAA subsidiary.
Two years on, the Department of Enterprise Trade and Innovation still has not decided whether the Aer Lingus departures qualify as redundancies. The Department will not reveal whether it paid the redundancy rebate for leave and return workers.
Meanwhile, Revenue is querying whether to approve 'top slicing' tax relief for a number of 'leave and return' Aer Lingus employees. Some fear they may have to refund tax relief on their packages to the taxman.
Passenger numbers down 3.4% last month
Aer Lingus says its passenger numbers in September fell by 3.4% to 927,000 compared to the same time last year. But the airline managed to improve its load factor - how many seats it fills on each flight - by 3.5 points to 81%.
Aer Lingus says its long haul passenger numbers were static at 86,000 while its short haul passenger numbers fell 3.8% to 841,000 compared to the same time last year.
Its long haul load factor rose by 10.2 points to 81.8%, with capacity on these routes falling by 15.5%. The airline's short haul load factor slipped 0.2 points to 80.6% with capacity decreasing by 3.3%.
