Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

This is an extremely important matter which relates to the rights of workers in general and those of 32 employees at the Vita Cortex plant in Cork in particular. They have been exploited and denied those rights by their employer. This is the 27th day of their sit-in at the plant. These are dignified, decent men and women who have in many cases given more than 40 years' service to the company. The dispute in which they are engaged is centred on their being denied their entitlement to redundancy payments. I welcome the intervention of the Labour Relations Commission in respect of this matter earlier today. The commission has agreed to engage in discussions with the management of Vita Cortex and with officials from SIPTU to explore the possibility of obtaining a solution in respect of this matter.

It is important that a resolution which favours the workers should be arrived at because this matter relates to them and to ordinary people in general. There is an onus and an obligation on everyone, whether the Government, NAMA, the trade union movement and especially the owners and directors of Vita Cortex, to engage in this process and reach a resolution that ensures this group of people are paid the redundancy to which they are entitled.

There has been a restructuring of the company, asset stripping and a changing of the whole game plan regarding the directors and shareholders in what is, to me, a group of related companies in the same business. The workers in the sit-in have not interfered in any shape or form with the other companies in the Cork plant. Yesterday, I visited the workers, as I have done over the period. Vita Clean is working and operating, so it is important to put on the record of the House that the workers have not stopped the work going on in other parts of the company. It appears that assets have been taken out of the Cork company, including valuable equipment that has been moved to other sites. Despite all of this, it seems there has been a deliberate policy to wind down, close and deprive the people, in this case the Cork people, of their money and compensation. I look forward to hearing the Minister of State's reply and I will come back again with a supplementary question.

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