Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is very telling that any serious legislation to deal with what happened in Clerys does not come from the Government but the Opposition. Staff were given 30 minutes' notice to pack up their stuff and leave. Some had worked for 40 years and I used to be employed by Mandate and knew many of them. Clerys sold the company for €1 and the building itself was subsequently sold for €29 million to the Natrium investment group. The State used €2 million in taxpayers' money for statutory redundancy payments to more than 400 workers who were made redundant without any notice.

We should think about the consequences for those workers. They had 40 minutes' notice that they would have no job the following day. Many were my age, or maybe a bit younger in their 40s and 50s, and knew they had no way to pay bills, rent, mortgages or kids' school fees. We should consider the effect on the workers who had given great service to the company, with many of them very committed for decades. We should consider the chaos, the terror and the financial hardship inflicted on them by the actions of the owners. They lost millions in wages and redundancy payments because of a trick by accountants and financial wizards who have gone on to bigger and better things for themselves. The individuals who planned and executed this robbery, this theft, now plan to make a killing with the site and will probably make millions for themselves.

The greed and avarice of the owners and developers, however, are not what is astonishing. What is astonishing is the inaction of the State and the agencies within the State which are supposed to be charged with protecting workers' rights. Two years later we get some effort to deal with that terrible crime, but this is a Private Members' Bill, not a Government proposal. One should compare the response of this State to the protest by the people in Jobstown in 2014 over water charges, when the full force of the State and its agencies swung into action with dawn raids, people handcuffed and millions spent on a trial with a potential maximum sentence of life imprisonment, but here the State's response is that one person is facing three counts of breaking the protection of employment law and impeding a Workplace Relations Commission inspector. Two other executives associated with the 2015 deal, the previous owners of Clerys, OCS Operations Limited, in liquidation, and Natrium Limited which took over the building are facing charges. The charges have been instituted by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and the WRC. What do they face under existing law? The Redundancy Payments Act states that an employer who fails to initiate consultations under section 9 or fails to comply with section 10 shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding €500. An employer who contravenes section 12 shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding €500, and for failing to co-operate with an authorised officer they shall also be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine of - surprise, surprise - €500. People should not worry, however, because they have a get-out clause. Where an employer is convicted of an offence under section 11 or 14, the employer may plead in mitigation of the penalty that there were substantial reasons related to their business which made it impractical for them to comply with the section under which the offence was committed. Is that strong legislation to protect the livelihoods of 400 workers and their families? My God. To my knowledge, the full force of the State has brought charges which might result in fines of €500. One laptop has been seized but there is no threat of life imprisonment or a substantial fine for the destruction of 460 jobs and livelihoods as a result of financial trickery that will make millions for a tiny few.

We can forget about waiting for this Government to legislate in any meaningful way to protect workers' rights and we can also forget about waiting for the Government to use existing legislation to stop what happened here happening again. There is no will, no energy and no desire to close off the loopholes or use the law to punish those who knowingly defraud the workforce of their entitlements. Legislation that allegedly protects workers' rights is at best feeble and at worst useless. Like the recent court case involving the boss of Anglo Irish Bank, I will not be holding my breath for this case to deliver justice for the workers in Clerys and for what they have gone through.

I very much welcome this Bill and commend Deputy Cullinane on another Bill that goes some way to tilt the legal balance in favour of workers in these situations. I welcome the sections that try to stop this type of fraud happening in the first place and those which try to recover the assets moved to rob workers of their statutory entitlements and of a living.

One section of the Duffy-Cahill report which continues to puzzle me in terms of the State's inaction is the review of the Companies Act 2014. Duffy-Cahill states that the Act did not appear to be in need of amendment but that it appeared to be in need of use. In other words, the Companies Act 2014 could deal with these situations but it is not used. I am unsure if we should seek to amend or strengthen the Companies Act or just use its provisions but, in either case, the political will of the Government to introduce new legislation to protect workers and to properly punish employers who treat them in this way is non-existent. I note the Tánaiste said that this Bill needs amendment to strengthen it in terms of protecting workers and I look forward to the debate at the next Stage when the Tánaiste, if she means what she said, will attempt to amend the Bill.

I again thank Deputy Cullinane for putting the Bill forward. It is very useful and is the type of Bill we should be progressing without further delay.

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