Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)

A number of anomalies have been highlighted over recent years in regard to notice and redundancy as the recession has begun to make serious inroads into employment levels. There have been instances in my constituency where it required considerable pressure and outside intervention to ensure the workers who were being made redundant received their due entitlements. I have also had representations from workers who have been let go from smaller companies which have allegedly ceased to operate but whose owners have established themselves under a new name within a short period. In some of these cases, the workers who were let go found their former employers were refusing to pay them any redundancy money on the basis they allegedly could not afford to do so. They then placed the workers concerned in the same position as other creditors who were also making claims against companies that had nominally ceased to exist but whose owners were still in business.

Both of these issues need to be addressed: the claim of workers to be compensated for the loss of their jobs, and for suppliers and others to be paid for their goods and services. It certainly ought not be possible for people to avoid their legal and financial obligations by ceasing to trade under one name only to reappear overnight under a different name. There was also, of course, the La Senza case in which there was a deliberate and cynical attempt by those responsible for running the company in administration to take advantage of legal loopholes not only to avoid paying redundancy but also to avoid paying wages owed to the workers for the time they had worked under considerable stress, given the fact that they knew their jobs were more than likely gone. Only the fact that they were not prepared to take the way they were being treated lying down forced the company liquidators, KPMG, to come to some terms with them. I commend them for this. The fact that it was only the direct action of the workforce, with the widespread support of the general public, that brought about the improved offer illustrates the need for the law to be changed in order to address such cases and avoid a repeat. That is why I urge all sides of the House, including Government Deputies who spoke out on the La Senza issue and about similar cases, to support the Sinn Féin proposals.

There is an ongoing problem in the Vita Cortex plant in Cork where workers have been in occupation for the past four months. Again, the owners of the company are claiming an inability to pay, whereas the workers' representatives have pointed both to previous offers from Mr. Jack Ronan and the fact that NAMA had apparently offered to release sufficient funds to facilitate proper severance terms.

The point ought to be that the legislation should establish proper procedures rather than leaving us open to similar moves by employers to avoid paying proper redundancy terms. The only way to ensure this is to bring forward proper legislation, which is why I commend the Bill to the House.

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