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

The Minister talked about protecting jobs and that is important. The reason we supported the passing of the emergency legislation was to do exactly that, but not to protect jobs at all costs and not to protect employers who seek to exploit this scheme by claiming money from the State and forcing their employees to work 100% of their hours. It is all very well to say there should be an agreement between the workers and the management and the business owners, but what if that does not happen? These are vulnerable workers. They want to keep working but they are working for 70% of their wages, in some instances without their agreement. They have come to us, and I am sure to the Minister in his constituency office, to advise that they believe it is not fair that their employer is benefitting from a State scheme.

Does the Minister agree that this is an anomaly? Will he agree to examine this and to insert a clause into the scheme to ensure this cannot happen? I stress that it is in the minority of cases, but where it is happening it is not right and it should be stopped.

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