Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Debenhams workers protested outside the Dáil earlier for the third time. They are some of the almost 2,000 workers who have been opportunistically thrown on the scrapheap by a company that had been seeking to exit the Irish market, a company of which Bank of Ireland is a part owner. Of course, the public is, in turn, part owner of Bank of Ireland. My first question is very simple. Will the State continue to just sit idly by while a jobs massacre begins in retail?

Last week, the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Humphreys, caused a degree of outrage among the workers by suggesting that it is some comfort to them that they are getting the €350 PUP but went on to say that the latter is only temporary. In other words, the Government is preparing, and this was indicated again this morning by the Minister, to reduce the PUP for those Debenhams workers who have been unfortunate enough to have to deal with such a company and for the more than 500,000 other people on the payment. My second very simple question for the Minister is whether he is prepared for the massive opposition that will face any attempt to reduce that payment, which has been implicitly accepted as the minimum level to allow people to live their lives? Instead of this divide and rule between people on just €200 and those on €350 and attempting to level matters downwards, the Minister should accept that we need a basic minimum welfare payment.

Does the Minister remember water charges? Does he remember the level of opposition that defeated those charges? Does he remember the fact the opposition to the water charges was not confined to the Dáil Chamber but was based on people power outside the Dáil which ultimately succeeded? If he goes down the road of the substantial austerity he is talking about in terms of the PUP and public sector pay, that is the type of opposition that will face this Government or the next Government, which, presumably, will also involve Fine Gael.

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