Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The workers in Debenhams are on strike, they have balloted for industrial action. They are not on the picket line because they want to be there, they are on the picket line because they are literally in the last-chance saloon. They have got no option. They have nothing, they have lost their jobs. If one talks to these men and women, some have 20, 30 or 34 years of service to the company. Between them, they have given hundreds of years of loyal service to a company that has simply left them, dumped them.

The Tánaiste may recall that my party tabled legislation in 2016. His predecessor as Minister in responding to the legislation, the Protection of Employees (Collective Redundancies) Bill 2017, said:

The Government supports the broad principles of the Bill. It is well intentioned and in line with proposals being developed in my Department in response to the Duffy-Cahill report.

Where are those proposals now? They were being developed in 2016. It is 2020 now and we have another situation. They were developed on foot of what happened to the Clerys workers, we now have another such situation. We are going to have more of these if we do not take some action. We have tabled legislation that is broadly in line with the legislation previously tabled, entitled the Protection of Employees (Collective Redundancies) Bill 2020. I have sought leave to introduce it and I hope that the Minister will work with me in the spirit of his predecessor to ensure that action is taken on behalf of these workers.

Will the Minister agree to meet with a delegation of Debenhams workers? Their trade union, Mandate, has written to him to request that. I have spoken to them directly and they have said that if they could talk to the Minister and explain to him it might underline for him the urgency and the need to act.

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