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

I utterly condemn the actions of HMV in regard to the treatment of staff and demand that their rights be upheld. The script supplied by the Minister of State contains the following statement which he did not have time to read:

The retail and wholesale sector employs over 250,000 people in Ireland - that is almost 15% of our total workforce. The sector suffered heavy job losses throughout the recession, shedding over 55,000 jobs since 2008.

We must understand this issue in the context of austerity and the crazed policy of taking from the pockets of ordinary people billions of euro which would otherwise be spent in shops to maintain employment and the domestic economy.

More than 300 jobs are at risk. The infrastructure should be taken into public ownership and control and developed as a viable enterprise which would bring workers to the heart of management. This would maintain their jobs and honour the various obligations that the company entered into in respect of vouchers.

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