Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I support amendment No. 2 and what Senator Gavan said. This Bill needed to do three things. The first concerns improving the provision of information to employees and creditors more generally. The second concerns the special recognition of workers, specifically with regard to existing collective agreements, implicit or express. The third concerns tightening up section 610 of the Companies Act with regard to the movement of assets to minimise losses and payments to workers. While the Bill does well on the first objective, I am very disappointed that the Minister of State has so clearly set his face against the recognition of collective agreements, implicit or otherwise. There is a very cold message to unionised labour on the benefits to unionised labour of having a precedent set down in collective agreements. It points to the failure of any legislation to recognise collective agreements.

With regard to the first part of the amendment, on the power of the court to return assets that have been improperly transferred, the Bill clearly tightens up section 610 of the Companies Act. This is welcome but falls short. It has been said several times in the debate about collective redundancies that it has taken a long time to get to this Bill. We had the report following the Clerys liquidation and that of the Company Law Review Group, CLRG, in 2021, but the minority report of the CLRG in 2021 specifically called for an amendment that would provide that a court would not give a hearing to the winding-up petition unless it had full details regarding the employees’ rights, entitlements and interests, including any enhanced redundancy terms. It expressly states that if there is a legitimate interest on the part of the company to protect its assets against whatever predatory actions it may envisage, the application for liquidation or winding up should be confined specifically to the protection of assets and that there would have to be a separate application concerning the winding up of the company and, therefore, the termination of the employment contracts of the workers. It is a great pity that consideration was not given to that very sensible amendment in the CLRG minority report in 2021 because it would get around some of the genuine difficulties and the defrauding of people of their redundancy entitlements because of the actions of the owners of the company in seeking to minimise the payouts for their losses.

I very much support the amendment. Given all the words spoken in the aftermath of the Clerys and Debenhams cases, we must ensure we are not back in circumstances in which employees are effectively defrauded of their entitlements, particularly in unionised workplaces. This must be taken on board if the Department is serious about sending a signal. In the context of the directive on adequate minimum wages, there have been assuring words from the Government on the need to do something with regard to collective bargaining and expanding it; however, this Bill, which presents an opportunity, does nothing to advance this aim. This is a missed opportunity.