Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I acknowledge we do not have powers of compellability but we have moral powers. The company has benefited from the security of a Labour Court agreement in carrying out its business since 1996 and it has engaged on six occasions with the court on the agreement over the past 19 years. It is particularly disgraceful, therefore, that it has chosen to ignore it now.

10 o’clock

The meeting the other day was an eye-opener into how zero-hour contracts work. Store managers have the ability to say to any employee that they can do this amount of hours this week and half the number next week. That is what is going on at the moment in terms of planning for next week. Store managers say to employees that if they go on strike they can only get a certain band of hours. I know the Minister of State is doing a lot of work to ensure decent conditions of work. I previously compared what is going on to what happened to the navvies in England, but that is happening in one of our largest, indigenous retail companies. Some parties in this House always condemn our multinational companies but when one of our own companies treats our own people like that, we have a moral obligation in this House to call them out for what they are. The old Labour Relations Commission was ideal for this kind of situation. Is there any mechanism currently available to Government that could be used to bring some sort of decency to the negotiations?

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