Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle's Office for allowing us to raise this matter. Deputy McDonald has already covered many of the issues I wished to raise. It is extraordinary that people who have given 40 years' service would get less than five minutes' notice, if even that, if they happened to be at work at 5 o'clock on Friday last. If they were not at work, they heard about losing their job through Facebook or via text messages from colleagues. Deputy McDonald was being generous with the timeline she spoke about. This took months to plan. Finance had to be put in place, a sequence of events had to be put in place, professionals had to be appointed, advice had to be sought and paid for - very dearly - to allow the parties to do this, to allow them to circumvent both company and employment law to try to achieve their objectives. I refer in particular to section 224 of the new companies Bill which puts the responsibility of company directors to employees on a par with other duties and makes that responsibility equally enforceable. On the basis of that section, I would ask that the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement be asked to look at the sequence of events that led to the scenario that unfolded at 5 o'clock last Friday. In particular, the office should look at the events in the preceding 24 hours, where a company was sold and OCS Operations was put into liquidation with no regard for employees. Surely if the aforementioned section of the Companies Bill is to mean anything, we should be able to utilise it now.

I acknowledge the response of the Department of Social Protection in terms of making officials available to the workers today at Liberty Hall. Will the Tánaiste clarify that those redundancy payments will be dealt with as soon as possible and that the standard delays one would expect will not arise given the very specific circumstances of this case?

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