Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Deputy that there have been many cases where workers have been treated poorly by employers and I am not exonerating them in any way but the question was should we change the law in this area. In many cases, NERA ensures that employers respect the existing law. Employers often fail to do so and that is why we immediately called in NERA.

The Deputy raised the situation with vouchers. If a company issues gift vouchers it knows it cannot honour, it is a serious matter under company law. Such instances would be reported to a receiver and, in turn, would have to be investigated with potential action being taken. Companies cannot act in a misleading way when conducting business.

The wider issue of precedence for gift vouchers over other creditors in the event of a company getting into difficulty raises the issue of the order for creditors. We just spoke of the need for workers to have preference in response to their commitments to a company. Gift voucher holders fall into the category of unsecured creditors and come lower down the order. Changing the order of preference would raise considerable issues.

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