Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I assure him that we are taking it seriously. It is urgent, but it needs very careful consideration because there are far-reaching consequences. As a Department, our job is to get the balance right in this area. The Minister of State, Deputy Robert Troy, and I are committed to this. The Tánaiste is also dealing with the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF. Our report will feed into the LEEF process, which involves all the relevant stakeholders.

I will ask Ms Tara Coogan to comment on the State's involvement in legal cases. She has been involved in these proceedings. Talking to some of the stakeholders, I get the sense that their legal advice was that using the legislation would be very costly. That has been referred to in the Duffy Cahill report. Moreover, it might not give them the result they need. They have obviously made a decision not to go down the road of availing of all the legislation. That is what I am trying to tease out. I want to research this issue. These laws are there to act as a deterrent, but they are also there to be used. If they are not being used, we have to find out why. To use the laws a party has to believe that assets are being hidden. I hear a lot of talk about assets in certain situations and I am not sure the evidence backs it up. The courts will decide that. A liquidator's job is to pursue all the assets to pay all the debts.

The Duffy Cahill report touches on the idea of the State assuming that responsibility through changes to the Redundancy Payments Acts. The State can instruct the liquidator to chase down these assets and provide the resources for it to do so. Ms Coogan is much more of an expert than I am, so I will let her discuss that.

Deputies also referred to collective agreements and the Social Insurance Fund. In any situation where a collective agreement on enhanced terms of employment is reached, everybody sitting around the table believes the money to pay for it exists. Presumably parties would not agree to certain benefits if they did not believe someone would pay them. At some point, the funding to meet these obligations existed. If a collective agreement is in place, it would follow that there are sufficient assets to pay out on any change in the structure of the business. However, collective agreements are often made when a company is restructuring. A deal is done and the company pays out there and then. People take voluntary redundancy because of that enhanced package. That package sometimes sets a precedent, which is where the matter of compensation arises. In common with some stakeholders, the Duffy Cahill report suggests that assets or money should be ring-fenced to pay out on such agreements. On the face of it, that is a private decision for each individual company or group of companies. The other question is whether the State should provide that funding if necessary. That is a very different question. It would be a draw on the Social Insurance Fund, which is under a lot of pressure at the moment.