Mr. John Douglas:

I would like to thank the members of the committee. The joint committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions is novel and provides a welcome process whereby petitioners can petition on areas of concern to ordinary citizens. I thank the Deputies for taking time from their busy schedule to come in to listen to our stories.

I hope the committee will indulge me for about two minutes to refer to Deputy Mulherin's comment on special damages. We have had a very good discussion about the problems and I hope the officials will bring back to the relevant Ministers the very serious problems that are being caused to ordinary citizens as workers in pursuing their rights, particularly when those rights have been adjudicated to be abused. There is a man in the Visitors Gallery who is a member of Mandate trade union and he is lucky that we have the resources to prosecute his claim as far as necessary. Mr. John Mulpeter went to work in Connolly Shoes in Dún Laoghaire 38 years ago. He is not unusual in that three other members of staff had 38 years service. His employer sacked all four staff on the one day back in 2010, without any reason whatsoever. John has an excellent employee record. He had never been on strike and had never had any disciplinary decisions against him but found himself unemployed. Eventually in 2011 John Mulpeter ended up before the Employment Appeals Tribunal. He and the other three staff were represented by the Mandate trade union. Mr. Mulpeter was awarded €1,600. His colleague with the same amount of service was awarded €53,295 for unfair dismissals. Both were sacked and had the same length of service, so one would ask why was there such a discrepancy? The reason was this was a question of special damages. Mr. John Mulpeter suffered a heart attack due to the stress of being sacked and being on the picket line. John was not therefore adjudicated by the trade union to be available for work, so therefore he suffered no loss. Not only was he penalised by losing his job but because he suffered a heart attack due to the stress of losing his job, his award was more or less wiped out.

Mr. Mulpeter is still picketing that store one day a week. We can get neither his €1,600 award nor the €53,295 for the other three members of staff, Mr. Pat Byrne, Damian Keegan and Susan Tighe. As far as Mr. Mulpeter and his fellow workers were concerned, they worked for Connolly Shoes but when we lifted the veil of corporate secrecy behind those companies, we discovered there were five companies. John Mulpeter and his colleagues worked for a company with no assets, which still makes an annual return every year to the Company Registration Office, with a return of zero in trading and the same list of directors. It is not insolvent, it has not been placed in insolvency, so therefore Mr. Mulpeter has no access to his rights. We have an enforcement order on behalf of Mr. Mulpeter and his colleagues. The Sheriff has been down to the shop. The employer picks out a receipt and shows that the stock on the shelves is owned by the company named on the receipt, the premises is owned by a different company and the order the sheriff has is against a company which has not assets. The only thing that remains for the trade union to do on Mr. Mulpeter's behalf is to go to the High Court, at great expense, but we will do it, to wind that company up to give Mr. Mulpeter and his colleagues access to the insolvency fund.

Why should bad behaviour be rewarded? Why should the State not put a charge on that company and its directors? Why should those directors not be banned from ever serving as a company director again? There are associated companies all over the place linked to that company to which the assets have been moved.

This is about the little person, the worker. Workers should have access to address their concerns and to right wrongs. If workers, who are not members of unions or do not have the means, as the vast majority do not, to employ barristers and solicitors and go to the Circuit or High Courts to get enforcement orders, it is a sad day. I ask the officials who are here today to consider this in the review of any legislation. This is not frivolous. John Mulpeter is not frivolous. He has put his health, his well-being and family on the line for the past three years trying to prosecute his rights. He has been run into a cul-de-sac by the legislation. That legislation can be opened up so that he can get his entitlement. No other worker, in this building here, or anywhere else, should have to suffer what he had to suffer. I ask that the message from this committee and the Department officials back to the relevant Ministers is a strong one, that this practice be opened up and that this veil of protection for corporate directors in limited liability companies be removed immediately.