Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I take it from the Minister's reply that he is not disputing my facts. The jobs were sold and the employees were not made redundant. The compensation element of the redundancy package — the 60% of the cost of buying out the Irish Ferries workers — was paid for by the rest of us. The Minister claims he received legal advice, presumably from the Attorney General. I invite the Minister to publish it. We must take his word for it, which I do, but we have not seen the advice. On 12 January, my party leader wrote to the Taoiseach, himself a former Minister for Labour, asking that the advice be published.

The deal is done and the damage cannot be undone. However, the Minister referred to the loophole that was exploited in this case which he is attempting to redress with less than 100 days between now and the next general election. Publishing the legal advice will allow us to test its robustness.

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