Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)

This is straightforward legislation. While it will not resolve all the problems arising in the area of protection of employees, its enactment would immediately strengthen and extend legislation aimed at protecting workers who have been made redundant. The Bill is supported by a number of the largest trade unions, including Unite, SIPTU and Mandate. Speaking at a briefing on the Bill earlier this week, John Douglas of Mandate stated his union was faced with a serious and growing problem of employers ceasing to trade and walking away from their responsibilities to their employees. When a company ceases to trade and is placed in the hands of a receiver or liquidator as opposed to being wound up, workers are left in limbo as regards pay arrears, holiday pay and pay in lieu of notification. They do not have recourse to the insolvency fund which is only available when companies become insolvent. In cases of insolvency, employees' claims have to be given preference by the receiver or liquidator and if the company does not have assets or capital, payment is made from the insolvency fund. The current position would be changed by the Bill, which proposes to give the Minister the power to declare companies insolvent for the purpose of meeting employees' claims.

I welcome the provision to extend the notification period for collective redundancies and measures aimed at reducing the 76 to 80 week delay in securing a hearing at the Employment Appeals Tribunal. It is outrageous that a backlog of 29,000 statutory redundancy claims has built up, particularly given the pace with which the Government facilitated employers' demands on issues such as joint labour committees and the introduction in the budget of more special tax breaks for high earners at the suggestion of powerful, big business interests and in the face of reservations expressed by the Revenue Commissioners.

The Labour Party has argued that a review body has been established and legislation will be forthcoming on foot of its findings. Legislation on the protection of employees is urgently required. It must be made loud and clear to employers that they cannot treat workers in the manner in which many of them have behaved in recent cases. When a Bill was proposed recently to address the implications of the X case, the Government argued that a review body was addressing the issue. We will closely monitor the position to ensure that, unlike in the case of joint labour committees where the Government reduced rather than enhanced workers' rights, any legislation introduced on foot of the review body's findings will enhance workers' rights.

See this speech in context