Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

When I spoke with workers in Tallaght this morning, they were fairly up-beat about the negotiations scheduled for later in the day. However, these negotiations have since broken down. My colleague is correct that there is no comfort in the Minister of State's reply. We are going through the motions but the issue extends beyond the Department of Social Protection to labour law and workers' rights. We need to offer these individuals our support. Many of them are not trade union members. It is wrong to simply let somebody go after working in a company for 17 years. We need legislative change in the long term, but we also need to work with our colleagues in Europe because this is an issue that crosses frontiers.

See this speech in context