Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

The Taoiseach does not seem to realise that what he calls the well proven mechanisms of the State are utterly ineffective in protecting workers' rights with regard to some of these - what I was going to call - rogue employers. However, the La Senza lingerie chain was part of a huge multinational corporation that owns Weetabix, which is an internationally known brand. The Taoiseach says these protections are there, but how can it happen in this State that as workers go home on a Monday night, having left their shops, a few of them get telephone calls from KPMG, acting on the instructions of Lion Capital or La Senza, to tell them not to come in in the morning because their jobs were finished? Does the Taoiseach realise that those workers are left hanging on for the State to pay their entitlements with regard to redundancies for 12 or 18 months by this massive multinational? It has overall responsibility but it has created a spurious distinction between companies using legalisms so it can walk away. It is incredible that this can happen in this day and age.

The situation is similar for the Vita Cortex workers where the State mechanisms have let workers down. The Government says it is concerned about the rights of these workers, so what initiative will it take regarding Vita Cortex and La Senza for an immediate redress of their situation?

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