Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is great to have the witnesses here with us today. I have a question on proposal No. 1. The second last sentence of it states that it is also noted that employees could be disadvantaged as the employer may not be able to pay wages and employees may not be entitled to jobseeker's benefits as they are technically not unemployed. That is glaringly worrying. The witnesses have done a lot of research in this area and are very knowledgeable about it. How do they foresee us proceeding? It is a ridiculous situation and I would like to hear from the witnesses how it could be addressed. If employees have no entitlement to payment from the State and at the same time they cannot get paid by the company, they are in limbo, which is unfair on any worker regardless of what is going on in a company that is in liquidation. Does proposal No. 1, which recommends the removal of the insolvency exception from the prohibition on implementing collective redundancies, resolve that issue?