Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not going to attack the Government here tonight. I will plead with the Government. The week before last I went to the Debenhams workers in Tralee where Debenhams has a branch and where many people from Kerry have worked and have given the best years of their lives to Debenhams. Those people asked if I would go back to Dublin and ask the Government to support them. This is a very ordinary and humble request from people who have paid their tax and who every week on their pay cheque have seen tax deducted at source if they had done overtime. They paid every contribution that was asked of them. They gave hour after hour doing their job, respectfully, giving the best years of their lives. I met very nice people on the picket line who have given decades working for Debenhams. To think that at the end of it all they cannot be treated properly, while at the same time the company is continuing to trade. If the company had gone bust and there was nothing left, or if it was a company that had gone wallop, then one could say the well is dry and one cannot get blood from a stone. However, that is not the case in this instance. Money is there that could treat these people properly. We need the Government and legislation to protect these workers and workers in other situations from this ever happening again. It is awful to think of people having to give so much time on the picket line. They are doing the right thing by saying that the stock inside the stores is their stock. The value of it is their money and as far as I am concerned it is theirs. The company is wealthy enough that it should be able to treat these people properly. Everybody does things in their own way. Other people stood up tonight and attacked the Government on a personal basis and so on. I am not into that sort of thing. I will say to the Minister of State and the Government please to realise that these are our people. They are from Kerry, Limerick and Cork. They are taxpayers. I ask the Minister of State to stand with them. I say this respectfully to the Government on behalf of the Debenhams workers protesting in Tralee today, yesterday, last week and the week before. The Acting Chairman, Deputy Durkan, will be interested to know, because he is one for a long time, that T.D. stands for Teachta Dála, which means "messenger of the people". I was sent here with a loud and clear message on behalf of the Debenhams workers that the Government should rise out and back these people because they are our people.

See this speech in context