Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Lahart stated that no stone would be left unturned. We are not asking the Government to turn any stone. Rather, we are asking it to drop its amendment because that amendment is worse than outright opposition. It essentially repeats what Eamon de Valera - in this, the Minister of State is at least being consistent - said to Irish workers all those decades ago, namely, that labour must wait. That is what the Government is saying to the Debenhams workers with this amendment. It is outrageous. As has been said repeatedly, they have been waiting more than 100 days. At the beginning, we called them the canaries in the coal mine because they were flagging that many tens of thousands of workers were facing redundancy, often in situations where justice would not be meted out to them. Justice for workers in this country is sadly lacking.

We are asking all Deputies which side they are on. Those are the words of the old labour song, "Which Side Are You On?" We are being asked to accept that liquidation, insolvency and mass redundancies are a natural occurrence like the weather, but that is not the case with Debenhams. This situation did not occur because of Covid, because shopping and business fell off or because stores in Ireland were not making enough profit. In the words of one of the shop stewards, this is a contrived insolvency. It happened because of a decision by a consortium of Bank of Ireland - remember the name - Barclays and two US-based hedge funds to appoint an administrator to Debenhams UK, triggering the withdrawal of support for the Irish arm of Debenhams and leading, in turn, to the liquidation and the loss of 1,400 jobs. It was not a natural event, but a conscious decision taken in the struggle over power and money between a consortium called Celine, which includes Bank of Ireland, and other shareholders, such as Sports Direct. The workers are collateral damage in a struggle between extremely wealthy and powerful vested interests.

I commend the workers. They are amazing. The Tánaiste and the Minister of State met them this morning. If they were not impressed by them, they ought to have been. They have taken a courageous stand. It is only when workers stand up and fight back that we can see any real change happening in this country. Some 90% of those workers are women, of whom more than 70% are in their 40s or 50s. That means that they have lived through the experience of recession at least three times. All the talk of retraining and repurposing them for new employment is not impressing them. It reads well, but it does not guarantee them any help. Eventually, the Government will be forced to do what the Debenhams workers are screaming at it to do.

The amendment calls for a review of legislation. The Minister of State just went through the details of the Duffy Cahill report. The Taoiseach must be well versed in it - pardon me for the Freudian slip, but I meant the Minister, Deputy Varadkar - because he was Taoiseach and sat on that report for years and did nothing. We need to act immediately and take the steps that were suggested in it. It states:

where workers have a sustainable claim to enhanced redundancy payments based on a contractual or quasi-contractual entitlement ... a practical mechanism should be provided by which those claims can be pursued.... [It] could best be achieved by increasing the level of compensation that can be awarded where the Protection of Employment Acts is contravened ... [It] would be possible for an Adjudication Officer ... to take into account ... a failure to obtain enhanced redundancy payments on foot of an express or implied terms incorporated in the employees' contracts of employment ...

This was written in 2016. In the years since, neither this nor any other of the Duffy Cahill report's recommendations has been enacted. The Minister currently responsible, Deputy Varadkar, told the House recently that Ireland had robust workers' legislation - in his dreams. We do not - not for the SEOs, not for the Debenhams workers, and not in terms of redundancies. The State and its institutions have utterly failed workers. They have continued failing them even after the Clerys situation in 2015.

The Government now has a chance to do the right thing, but it has tabled an amendment that basically tells the workers to go away. The Government claims this matter is complex with unintended consequences and the cost to the Exchequer and so on needing to be considered, but let us think back to only last week when very complex legislation of more than 140 pages was passed. Even the Minister of State responsible admitted that he had not read it or did not understand it. That legislation was to facilitate this country signing up to an EU package to be dispensed to businesses. As Deputy Gino Kenny mentioned, the Dáil sat day and night in 2008 to pass complex emergency legislation. It moved heaven and earth for bankers and businesses. Now, we are asking the Government to do that for workers, who are just as important, if not more important, than any banker or businessman.

The difference between a statutory payment of two weeks and the possibility of an enhanced payment of an additional two weeks would give considerable comfort to workers in servicing their mortgages, paying off other debts, etc. We call on the Government to accept two of our requests. First, it should tell the liquidators that all money coming to the State in the form of taxes, VAT and so on should be used to pay the enhanced redundancies. Second, Bank of Ireland should be called in by the Government and told that, even though the taxpayer bailed it out more than ten years ago, it is now playing a game with no thought given to the devastation caused to the lives of the families involved.

As a key shareholder in that consortium, it needs to make sure that those workers get justice and their just desserts.

The Green Party is noticeable by its absence here tonight. Do its members consider themselves progressive and on the side of workers in these situations? Are they committed to what they call a just transition for workers? If they are committed to it in the climate area, they should be committed to it in this debate. I am asking the Green Party, members of which are not here to speak in support this motion, to vote with us tomorrow and to use the position they won votes for to defend workers' rights over the vested interests of finance and banking.

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