Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Again, I am not going to raise expectations that one cannot deliver on in terms of interfering in the liquidation process or making interventions that could not be legally sustained. For the existing workforce, the liquidation process and how we can leverage the remaining assets to secure the rights of workers is a challenging and complex issue, as the Deputy knows deep down. I accept his bona fides in respect of what he wishes to happen on behalf of the workers and understand where he is coming from in that regard.

There are a few dimensions to this. How can we support in the most practical way the workers who have been laid off? How can we prevent the exploitation of company law to prevent such exploitation of workers into the future? How can we build in greater protections for workers, in case of such eventualities, so that they will have greater claims and access to clawbacks following closures engineered in this way in future. That is what I would like to examine with my colleagues in government.

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