Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In concluding the contributions, it is notable that the House is united on this issue. The workers who are being directly affected are the foundation of Tesco's business in Ireland. As Deputy Broughan said, they are the people who worked in Quinnsworth, the company that Tesco swooped in and bought many years ago. The attempts by management to divide the pre-1996 and post-1996 workers failed, and it is a fantastic endorsement of the solidarity of the entire workforce in Tesco that it did fail.

We must send a message to Tesco by using the existing industrial relations machinery that this is not acceptable to any company. The Minister of State should send a similar message to the management of Bus Éireann, the management of Hastings Garage and to any management planning on assaulting the terms and conditions of loyal employees, many of them in middle age. The notion that only a few workers are affected by this is true but many more left Tesco under severe pressure over the course of the past 12 months because they were given no option but to leave. Effectively, they were managed out the door at a difficult stage in their lives. I welcome the fact this House is united in sending a strong message to Tesco that this will not do in Ireland in 2017.

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