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

This cannot go on. Consider Jane Norman, Lagan Brick, Le Senza, Vita Cortex and now the 121 GAME workers. That employers or administrators can chew workers up and spit them out is not acceptable and has gone on for too long. We need Government action. Where is the legislation to ensure that employers and administrators cannot treat workers in this way? Where is the legislation to prevent a company that operates and makes profits in Ireland from hiding behind the fact that it is based in another jurisdiction and not discharging its responsibilities to its employees? Will the Government state today that it will demand that PricewaterhouseCoopers treat the GAME workers properly and provide redundancy payments and entitlements? Allowing this situation to continue would not be acceptable.

I pay tribute to the occupying workers. I encourage them to stay in occupation, as it is their only leverage to demand justice. The Government cannot cry crocodile tears. It must introduce legislation to prevent a similar situation from recurring and it must exert pressure on the administrators.

All of these cases show that austerity is destroying demand and our domestic economy and massacring jobs. They should give the Government pause to consider investing in the economy to end the jobs massacre instead of making us prey to employers and multinationals who treat workers like dirt in this way.

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