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

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 6, line 24, after “representatives” to insert “and employees’ recognised trade union”.

I would also like to be associated with the kind remarks made earlier with regard to the recent bereavement suffered by our colleague, Richard, and his family. I apologise in advance if I have to go early as there is a Private Members' motion in the Dáil and I will be speaking on it. However, I think we might get through this business beforehand.

It is my intention to withdraw this amendment but I will bring a similar one forward on Report Stage to be inserted into section 20. The Report Stage amendment will insert: "That when a petition for the winding up of a company is bring made to the High Court that workers will be notified." It will be recommended that this should be extended, and for the avoidance of any doubt, to include a trade union of which these workers are members. The legislation before us puts an obligation on the directors of a company to inform employees or their representatives of the intention to seek the winding up of a company. The new proposed subsection to be inserted into section 571 of the Companies Act 2014 simply refers to an obligation to inform employees, so it is more of a belt, braces and bailer twine type of amendment. For the purposes of this discussion my intention is to withdraw amendment No. 1 but to put the Minister on notice that I will bring forward an amendment on Report Stage.

It should also be expressly provided that a trade union would be entitled to be heard in the High Court during the application for the winding up of a company, and I am flagging that I will bring that forward. Part of the reason for that is that when one talks to workers who have been involved in the cases this legislation seeks to deal with, very often the workers and their representatives will say they did not feel heard or like there is a place for them. That is how we ended up with protests. Even when we were in the midst of Covid, workers were still coming out to protest. That is a measure of the level of frustration that was there and the fact there is not a place for the workers, or their representatives, to go. In talking to union officials, they will tell you pretty much the same thing. I wanted to flag that I am happy to withdraw amendment No. 1 but I will bring forward an amendment on Report Stage to include the representatives explicitly.