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

The Company Law Review Group issued a report in 2017. It outlines again the need for changes and outlines exactly what needs to be done. There is absolutely no dearth of information about what needs to be done and what would be the right thing to do. Everybody knows this. All that they are waiting on is the political will to act on it and that is why I am imploring the Minister to meet with the Debenhams workers and I welcome the fact that he will consider that. Their trade union has written to him, I think the letter was sent last week. They would be very grateful for a formal meeting with a delegation.

The Minister referred to redundancy. As he rightly pointed out, the workers are entitled to what I, in my previous life, would have called "stat", that is, statutory redundancy. They have a collective agreement. They were a unionised workforce and I am conscious of the fact that I am talking to someone who has worked for probably most of his adult life under collective agreements and national wage agreements. These workers had a collective agreement with their employer and their employer has walked away from it. It did cover issues such as their redundancy entitlement and they are now sitting-in because there is stock in the Debenhams store and once that is gone they believe that will be it, that it is all that is going to be left to them. Statutory redundancy after 34 years of good and loyal service is not really good enough. These people had a collective agreement with their employer which was negotiated. There was give and take, as there always is, on behalf of both parties but the workers should be entitled to the minimum terms that are in that collective agreement.

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