Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

The Duffy Cahill report was published in March 2016. We had 2017, 2018 , 2019 and we are now in 2020. The Taoiseach is correct that those workers have been a long time on the picket line - 150 days. When people were told to cocoon at the very start of the restrictions, those workers had to go out there and protect the shop's stock so that it would not be sold off above their heads. They have been out there every single day of the week of the last period of time. We have a duty to those workers to say now that legislation will be brought in immediately as an emergency measure to deal with this.

The Government should put all its resources into doing that in the next week or two. The Taoiseach said it will not affect the Debenhams workers but if he brought in legislation immediately, and I know the unions have raised this with him, the liquidation is still in process so it could impact on those workers if the Government hunted down Debenhams assets to pay the workers. It can be done. The Duffy-Cahill report said that the Government should pay the four weeks' redundancy per year of service and then hunt down the assets. The law has to be changed. It is not good enough to leave these workers in this position for the next ten, 20, 30 or 40 days without bringing in legislation. The Taoiseach should bring in emergency legislation now. He has the power to do it. He has done it repeatedly over the past while in terms of emergency legislation to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. I ask him to do that now for these workers.

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