Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have time to speak on this. During the past weeks we were mixed up about which groups were trying to get time. I wish comhghairdeas to the Minister, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor and the Minister of State, Deputy Pat Breen. I wish them well in their portfolios. I thank the Minister for engaging with me on a very sad issue in Tipperary in which workers were treated appallingly after a recent closure. I thank the Minister's office for engaging and arranging a meeting with the IDA and Enterprise Ireland. It is a tús maith, a good start. Every person's job is very important to that person and his or her family.

I have been a small employer since 1982 and understand some of the vagaries. I have an excellent workforce and have had a good relationship with my employees through many years. Some have left, some have returned and some have gone to greener pastures. No business could function without a very skilled, willing and able workforce. There must be respect, and it works both ways. Employers must respect employees in what they ask them to do. I am in a service industry and my employees must respect the customers with whom they engage. It works both ways; it is a two-way street.

While I see where the Labour Party is coming from with the motion, as a small employer I am unable to support it, given that we must make haste slowly. In a recovering economy, which everybody tells us about - some of the messages we received during the election were misleading - the growth is very delicate and must be nurtured. We must examine it from all aspects and try to nurture it along. Other speakers have spoken on this, as they are entitled to, and demanded that we jump to the new level immediately. However, it is not easy. They got the increase.

We must also be very careful regarding the taxation system.

It is one thing to give a wage increase but in some cases, as has happened in past, it puts an employee over a certain income limit and into a higher PRSI bracket. A detailed examination of this area is required. In such cases employees bring home less money than they had before they got their wage increase. That is a farce. We must examine the taxation system. We must have an incentive in the system for people to work and it must be rewarding for them to work. It must be based on the premise that they have to get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. People must be enabled to go to work. It costs money to go out to work. They have to travel, they need work attire and must have many other needs met to go out to work. I salute the many employees who go out to work and keep this country functioning day in, day out, many of them working in this House, in other buildings and in other areas of the public service. They provide a tremendous service.

There have been many cuts, taxes and attacks on people's incomes and many pressures as we well know. Workers have commitments and have to provide for their families and pay rent or a mortgage on their homes. They have had to cope with the high cost of property, and rent allowance was the subject of a major debate during the term of the previous Government but, thankfully, in this programme for Government something is being done about that.

I urge caution on this important issue. I have no truck with or respect for the likes of Tesco and such companies. The Acting Chairman might tell me I should not mention names but it is obvious that there are issues in that company and the granting of zero-hour contracts is totally unfair to workers. There are many other big chains. We saw what happened in a flagship company in O'Connell Street.

There have been many cases, as happened in a company in Tipperary two weeks ago, where the workers came to see me six or seven weeks ago and told me they were concerned about their jobs, but they were kept in the dark and not told anything. I could not get any engagement with the company or through any of my Oireachtas Member colleagues. The workers were then called to a meeting of a Tuesday at 12.30 p.m. to be told that they would have their P45s on Thursday. That is disgraceful treatment of any worker. Some of those employees were with that company for 36, 40 and 43 years. They had given a great number of years service and were a dedicated workforce. That type of practice cannot be allowed. We need a strengthening of legislation and the competition authority and other areas need to be stronger to stop takeovers and mergers that are only done for one reason, namely, to make profit and to try to get rid of the workers.

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