The Minister for Social Protection has confirmed that reforms to the social welfare payments for workers who lose their jobs will not be in place in time for hundreds of workers due to be temporarily laid off from Tara Mines in Co Meath.
Speaking at an engagement in Sligo today, Heather Humphreys said she has been working on introducing "pay related benefit" but there was still work to be done on it.
Minister Humphreys said she is hoping to bring proposals to Cabinet "in the next number of weeks" about how a pay related benefit system could be set up in Ireland.
She said it was in the norm across Europe.
"It's important when workers who have worked all their lives suddenly find themselves out of a job, that they do not have that cliff edge drop in their income", she said.
When asked if such a system would be in place in time for workers due to be temporarily laid off from Tara Mines in mid-July, the minister said it would not.
"Unfortunately it won't be, because it takes time. I have to get agreement from my Cabinet colleagues and I have to progress it and it will take legislation", she said.
The minister said a lot of work had been done on this to date and she wants to see it progressed.
Yesterday, unions representing 650 workers at the mine in Navan called for further engagement with Government on the issue.
They said that the Irish system was "out of kilter" with the rest of Europe
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, SIPTU Division Organiser Adrian Kane said Ireland's social protection model is completely out of line with what the norm is in Europe.
He said: "If people were facing the dole in Belgium, they'd be on 90% of what their average wage was. If they were in Denmark, it would be 80%. If it was the Netherlands [it would be] at 70%.
"Everybody's back down to €220. We engaged on the pandemic in which you had the basis of some remodelling of that.
"Now is the opportune time and we're looking for engagement with the Government on that if we can't save the mine in putting in some sort of pilot scheme in Tara mines."
further talks were due to be held with Boliden Tara Mines today, but said "the reality of it is that unless we have some sort of political intervention, it's difficult to see how the decision would be reversed, but we haven't given up hope on that"
He said there are issues around the terms and conditions of the layoff and "there's also issues in relation to how you would manage the layoff as in how we engage during that period, what sort of matrix could be developed as to when it might be opened again, so they're the kind of pragmatic things that we have to deal with.
"But I want to make this point, we're not going anywhere until we resolve this to the satisfaction of our members".
Mr Kane said: "We'll occupy the mine if it's not resolved.
"And we'll continue to do so until the issues that are outstanding between us are resolved."
He said that political intervention could see the company reverse the decision to close the mine with "some subvention with regard to energy costs", which the company has said is running at two-and-a-half times what it was before the energy crisis.
"Energy is one of the biggest issues", he said and zinc is an important part in a post carbon economy.
"The company has been engaging with Government, but we're not able to get clear sight of what the Government are prepared to put on the table.
"So that's one aspect of it and that's our priority in terms of what, what subventions are possible.
"Now is the opportune time and we're looking for engagement with the Government on that if we can't save the mine in putting in some sort of pilot scheme in Tara mines." (7.47)
