Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

On Monday, 114 workers in the La Senza lingerie chain were informed by either e-mail or phone call in curt notifications that their jobs were gone. They were not given information about the work they did over Christmas. There were no P45s given out, so they are unable to sign on. It is outrageous and shameful treatment of these mostly young women workers, single mums, people with mortgages and students who have been left high and dry by the company, La Senza, and by the administrators, KPMG, who must have known this was coming and allowed these workers to continue to work over Christmas in good faith believing they would be treated properly and receive proper notification of any change in their position.

They cannot sign on and they do not know about redundancy. If it must be paid by the State it could be a year before they receive it and they have no idea when they might be paid the moneys they are owed for Christmas. It is bad enough to treat workers like this at any time, but to do it just after Christmas is absolutely horrendous. Yesterday, some of the workers at the occupation were in tears telling me about their plight.

We do not just want a condemnation of La Senza, although it is roundly deserved. We want the Government to use its influence and contact KPMG to demand it immediately appoint an administrator and that the workers' wages are immediately paid. The Minister should move to urgently fast-track social welfare applications so the State provides assistance to these workers and they can sign on.

This speaks to a bigger problem. La Senza is just the latest victim of the retail collapse in the country and the latest of the tens of thousands of victims of the austerity which is crippling the economy. At the very least, if the Government is to continue with austerity it should put in place legislation or some type of insurance fund to protect workers who are left high and dry by unscrupulous employers.

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