9.— (1) Where—

(a) the Labour Court issues an opinion that collective redundancies proposed by an employer are exceptional collective redundancies,

(b) the employer proceeds with the dismissals on the same basis as in the relevant proposal, and

(c) the employer applies to the Minister for a rebate under Part III of the Redundancy Payments Act 1967,

the Minister shall have regard to the opinion of the Labour Court when considering the employer’s application for the rebate.

(2) If the Minister refuses to pay the rebate, or pays a reduced rebate, the exemption from income tax provided by section 203 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 does not apply in relation to lump sum payments made in pursuance of section 19 of the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 by the employer to employees dismissed as mentioned in subsection (1).

(3) Section 7 of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 has effect in relation to a dismissal that is one of a number of dismissals included in a collective redundancy that is determined by the Labour Court, in an opinion given under section 8, to be an exceptional collective redundancy as if—

(a) the following paragraph were substituted for paragraph (c) of subsection (1) of section 7:

“(c) payment by the employer to the employee of such compensation as is just and equitable having regard to all the circumstances but does not exceed in amount remuneration in respect of the employment from which the employee was dismissed (calculated in accordance with regulations under section 17 of this Act) for—

(i) in the case of an employee who, at the date of the dismissal, had not more than 20 years’ continuous service — 208 weeks, or

(ii) in the case of an employee who, at the date of the dismissal, had more than 20 years’ continuous service — 260 weeks.”,

and

(b) the following subsection were substituted for subsection (2) of section 7:

“(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1), in determining any reduction in the amount of compensation otherwise payable under paragraph (c) of that subsection regard shall be had only to the amount (if any) of severance or redundancy payment accepted by the employee in relation to the dismissal.”.