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

I thank the witnesses. I will begin by taking a small amount of time to pay tribute to the Debenhams workers who have now spent more than 400 days on the picket line. They were not doing that for nothing. I am sure they want to see a proportionate response as a result of what they have gone through. Sinn Féin supports this legislation. We want to see it finalised and enacted. As the Debenhams workers have said, this would be a fitting tribute to their sacrifice and perseverance.

My first question is for Mr. Berney or Mr. Light. I note the IBEC submission makes reference to how generous Irish statutory redundancy is by comparison with Britain, but not funnily enough not by comparison with France, Germany or any other country in the European Union. Where there is a collective redundancy element within an agreement between workers, the union and management, would it be true to say that in that agreement there is also give and take for the workers? Any agreement may have an enhanced redundancy part of it. However, it will also contain requirements for the workers, meaning that any agreement is necessarily a form of compromise. The only difficulty is that when insolvency occurs, the rest of it cannot be actioned because the company is gone. Am I right in saying that?