Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and thank him for his submission. He referred to the Debenhams workers and I will refer briefly to them and specifically to the letter sent to the Minister of State on 31 August by Patricia King from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU. She made reference to a statutory scheme, and having examined the best practice in other EU countries, for example, France, Germany and Austria, there is no disputing it.

The Minister of State referenced in his submission that some redundancies are about securing a company's survival and others happen in the context of a company closing its doors. They are two very different scenarios. In the first case, where the company still exists, the workers have somebody to negotiate with. There is a massive difference between the two cases. In the case of Debenhams the company shut its doors. I note Congress put a proposal to the Minister of State. I do not mean this disrespectfully in any way but I get absolutely no sense of urgency from the Government or the Department on this and I hope he will convince me that I am wrong.

In the letter on 31 August, a proposal was put to him. It makes reference to what was in the Minister of State's submission - that the lockdown denied the Debenhams workers the opportunity to vindicate their rights because of the circumstances. Senator Gavan and I, and others, have experience of prosecuting a dispute. I have never had to do it in a pandemic and I cannot imagine how it would be done. Everything has to stop. What work has been done on the proposal put by the most senior ranking trade union official in the State? What thought was given to it? What work has been done on looking into it? If it is a case that it will not work, that can be explained to us. If it is being examined, the Minister of State might bring us up to date on where it is at.