Workers who have been laid off will continue to have their right to demand redundancy after a certain period suspended until the end of November.
Under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967, an employee who is laid off has the right to demand redundancy if the employer is unable to guarantee work.
This avoids leaving employees in limbo by giving them the right to demand their redundancy lump sum and move on to seek employment elsewhere.
However, when the pandemic struck, there was huge concern that with a tsunami of layoffs looming, hundreds of thousands of people could seek to force redundancy - which would have put pressure on the cash flow of businesses.