Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent)
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We could spend a lot of time debating that. Ms Cahill addressed the previous meeting of the committee. She referred to the ability of the related company to pay the debts of the insolvent company where it has in some way contributed to the insolvency, as set out in section 599, and said that the provision seems to have never been invoked. I draw the Minister of State's attention to that. I think that might relate to Debenhams. I will move away from the subject of Debenhams.

In terms of the provision of future agreements and possible setting up of a fund, I agree with the Minister of State. It is very difficult to understand how this is going to work. People might come into employment, pay into a fund and leave the employment and part of their payments are left behind and they might never get a follow-on residual benefit. I accept that but we must do something about creating some security. What about mandatory employee share ownership trusts for companies? We would set up and mandate employee share ownership trusts where companies have some benefit in ownership assuming it goes on. In that instance, they obviously get paid for performance but in the event of liquidation, there might be some value in that. This might be something worth looking at.

My next point goes back to Debenhams. I know people closer to the unions talk about pay bargaining. Where pay agreements are made, is there an opportunity to have them provisioned in a company's balance sheet and corporate accounts? In other words, if there is an agreement, does it show up as a provisioned debt within the company so that in the event of insolvency where a liquidator comes in, that forms part of the debts of the company and it is clear that a benefit is due to the employees?