Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

"As soon as possible" is not good enough. The men in question are destitute. They got paid a maximum of €250 in cash four weeks ago and they have to be given the bus fare to come into town. That is how desperate they are. This is an incredible scandal by any stretch of the imagination. It is simple to address this and I have made a proposal to the Minister in that regard. Executives of Finansbank Holland should come to Dublin with all the information so workers can have access to it. Alternatively, each worker could sign a statement — this could be done tonight — which I or another representative of the workers could take to Holland on Friday. The bank could then give us statements for the accounts, as authorised by the workers, and we could bring these back. The workers would then have a further document to sign and would get their money within ten days of it being submitted to the bank. That is what we need. I need that assurance for these workers by this weekend.

There are other issues.

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