Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Nine years ago, the workers of Vita Cortex in the south side of Cork city sat in for 160 days to try to get the pay and redundancy to which they were entitled. At the time, they were visited by many public figures, maithe agus mór uaisle, including the current Taoiseach, who gave them very strong support, vocally if not practically. We are now in the same situation nine years on in that workers who are made redundant due to insolvency are way at the back of the queue. The language might refer to preferential treatment and so on but the reality is very different. In that time there have been numerous other similar cases, such as Game and La Senza, and now we have Debenhams as well. The Duffy Cahill report was also published in that time but its recommendations have not been progressed. We urgently need legislation on this. Workers are often left without any answers, poor communication and are denied their pay and entitlements. That should not be the case. It is a brutal way of treating workers and the Government has to address it.

There are those who believe, including unfortunately some on the left, that the objective is to give people the opportunity to get whatever employment they can over the course of years or generations and achieve social mobility. That is not the objective. While it can be part of it, the objective should be for everyone in any job to be able to live a secure, fulfilling life and to be able to pay for whatever they need and have that security. Crucial to that is ensuring that every worker has decent pay, and the greatest guarantee of decent pay is joining a union. Our unions are not perfect and I have had many disagreements with them, but the fact is that union workers are better paid and better protected. I urge anyone listening and people generally to join a union. Our legislation needs to be resolved. It is unacceptable that employers have the option to just disregard a well-organised, legally constituted union, set it aside and force it out the door. That needs to be fixed. We are an outlier in Europe on this matter. We need legislation on collective bargaining.

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