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

The Minister of State referenced the creation of two classes of employees. That exists already. There are already workers whose collective bargaining agreements, which might not have statutory underpinning, certainly have an impact at the level of the workplace. As I said, there is give and take. That already exists. If one is in a unionised employment, the chances are one has a collective agreement that covers 101 different matters, redundancy being one of them. If one is not, one is not. That upstairs-downstairs two classes of employees already exists.

I am happy to engage with the Minister of State between now and Report Stage. What I am seeking to do is to insert an amendment that will provide protection here. We have to acknowledge that there are two classes. There are workers who are unionised, and there are also non-unionised workers, who enjoy collective agreements, protection and enhanced redundancies and there are some who do not. Those who find themselves in the situation, as they did in Debenhams, for example, where there was collective bargaining, give and take, they gave over whatever it was as part of the agreement and they got back an enhanced redundancy, but when push came to shove they found that enhanced redundancy was not available to them and they found themselves effectively at the back of the queue. As the Minister of State outlined, there are certain payments for which workers are considered already preferential, but not for redundancy, and it was to seek to redress that.

I welcome the Minister of State's offer of engagement. That would be good. I think the Minister of State shares my aspiration to ensure companies cannot engage in the practice of tactical insolvencies because, effectively, what happens here is that the workers are the ones left at the very end of the queue for their redundancy payments. That is what we are here to discuss - the minimum entitlements to sick pay, annual leave, etc. That is fair enough, but the redundancy would constitute the bulk of the award as whatever one would get for minimum terms and retrospective holiday pay, etc., would be very small and not reflective of what the service one would have given to the company.

I am happy to engage with the Minister of State and I am interested in doing so. It is something that should be done. If it is the Minister of State's position that the amendment does not do that, I can tell him that my intention was to do that. I am happy to engage with him and his officials to see if we can come to some mechanism by which this cannot happen anymore. I do not think anybody would try to justify it - the Minister of State certainly is not doing so - but my clear position is that we know it goes on and it needs to be stopped.

On the basis of the offer from the Minister of State that we can have an engagement, I am happy to do that. I am content to withdraw the amendment with a view to resubmitting it on Report Stage.