Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 November 2020

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Implementation of Duffy Cahill Report: Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment

Photo of Paul GavanPaul Gavan (Sinn Fein)
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The point is I have given the Minister of State a whole series of cases. What Duffy Cahill said was they were not being specific to any case but it was quite clear that their proposals would have relevance across a number of the cases I have cited. It would potentially have had relevance to Debenhams. The fact of the matter is that the EU Court of Appeal has found this State has failed to adequately implement EU legislation by failing to provide a procedure to protect employees' entitlements in the event of an informal insolvency of their employer. What completely baffles me is why the Department has done nothing about it to date. Today the Minister of State appears to be buying time again. As I have only a minute or so left, I want an assurance that he will bring forward positive proposals to protect employees. He should start with the first proposal Deputy Bruton mentioned, to insist that everyone has that right of consultation for 30 days. Will the Minister of State at least give us a commitment that that will happen? If he does, can he give a commitment for when it will happen because this tsunami of further liquidations is coming at us like a train, early next year. Talking about this without giving us firm time commitments is, frankly, not good enough.