Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have met some of the Debenhams workers already about this matter although I have not met them through their trade union. I am certainly happy to consider any meeting request. It is important to say that the Debenhams staff who were laid off should get their redundancy and they will. Even if it has to come out of the Social Insurance Fund they should get it. I know that they have not gotten it yet but redundancy payments are suspended at the moment because of Covid. That should not stop them getting their redundancy payments and they should get them as soon as is possible, either from the company or from the Social Insurance Fund if needs be.

The situations with Clerys and Debenhams are not quite the same. Clerys had substantial property assets on O'Connell Street, Debenhams did not. It was renting its premises and had been in and out of examinership for quite some time. Putting the two together is a little bit inaccurate. There are legal changes that need to be made however. Some flow from company law and the company law Bill which we will publish in the next couple of days will deal with some of those. When we have the employment affairs section transferred over I will look again at the Duffy Cahill report and see if we need to make some changes on foot of that.

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