Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

HMV is a British-owned multinational and yesterday, its Irish section, HMV Ireland, closed its doors declaring it was in receivership. This has left over 300 staff in an intolerable position as regards their jobs and wages owed. It has also left an unknown number of ordinary people with gift vouchers which have been paid for but will not be honoured according to HMV. Staff are owed five weeks' wages, including a lot of overtime that was worked over Christmas.

This is almost an exact re-run of what happened at the La Senza lingerie chain last January when staff were left in exactly the same situation. It is fine for Government Deputies to be angry. The question is where are the measures that should have been implemented to ensure that employers and big chains cannot act in this way. Workers in Limerick have occupied HMV stores demanding their rights and they should be fully supported. Workers in Limerick say their shops are viable and there is great potential in other areas if there was a strategy to maintain jobs and develop the activities in which the company was engaged. The State or local public agencies should therefore take ownership of this chain and with the staff, work out a plan to develop it, honour the vouchers for which ordinary people have paid and, in particular, maintain the jobs. Workers in occupation should be supported but, disgracefully, when workers in Thomas Cook Tours occupied premises to demand their rights, the doors of that company were bludgeoned by the gardaí and these workers were dragged in front of the courts so we want immunity for workers who occupy to defend their rights in front of powerful multinationals acting disgracefully.

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