Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for facilitating the raising of this issue this afternoon which is of significant importance to many people in the Cork area, especially to the 32 workers at Vita Cortex. All of us representing the area have met the workers and have been to the plant. The manner in which the workers have been treated is absolutely unacceptable and the overwhelming responsibility lies with the management of the company to meet its obligations to the workers. It is important that there is an interdepartmental response from the Government involving the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Social Protection and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. There should be a more proactive response to this dispute. While I welcome the news today that the Labour Relations Commission, LRC, is to hold a fact-finding hearing next Tuesday, this should have taken place earlier and I call on the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to meet the workers and management on this issue.

The workers must continue to occupy and sit-in to try to get their rights. They were assured up to 16 December that they would get 2.9 weeks redundancy which, in the context of recent redundancy settlements and over recent years, is a modest and reasonable request from the workers. I call on the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to meet the workers and the management of the company. I call for a cross-governmental response because although the expedition of the application to the social fund will not solve the issue since it only deals with the statutory element, none the less it will be an important dimension to help the situation in which the workers find themselves.

I do not place the ultimate responsibility on NAMA, but none the less workers are watching bigger fish in the NAMA field, much bigger deals are being done in terms of hundreds of millions of euro and they are at a loss to understand how €2.5 million is frozen. They believe even a part of this could be released to meet their needs. It is difficult for workers in such situations on modest wages to understand the contrast in their perception of how others are being treated in the NAMA field compared with themselves. Will the Minister of State clarify today on the record of the House or, if he cannot, will he send me documentation relating to the legal basis upon which NAMA has made its decision? Is it the case that it is illegal for NAMA to intervene or is it the case that NAMA believes it could create an undesirable precedent to take steps to make a contribution to resolve this issue? The contributions must come from all sides and people must be imaginative and creative to try to find a way to realise the 2.9 weeks of redundancy payment that the workers seek.

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