Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this question. I believe the former staff of Debenhams have been treated very badly by their employer in the way these redundancies came about, and they have our sympathies. Like many people, I have been impressed by, and respect, the campaign they have waged for nearly 160 days. They have shown extraordinary resilience and real strength but it is also the reason I do not like to see them being promised outcomes that we all know, even though some of us will only admit it privately, are not possible to achieve. That is not right and it is not honest.

In terms of the Government's role, we will make sure the legal rights of the workers are fully vindicated. That means making sure they get at least two weeks per year of service of statutory redundancy pay. If the liquidator in the company cannot pay that, we will pay for it out of the Social Insurance Fund and pursue it later. We will make sure they get whatever welfare payments and income support they are entitled to. We will make sure they are given opportunities to retrain, access adult education and help to find a new job.

Anything additional to that - anything extra - could only be secured in negotiations between the union and the liquidator. I believe those negotiations should resume, as the Taoiseach said yesterday. I believe Mandate, the trade union, is doing its very best. I heard the head of the union on a radio programme yesterday saying it will do its best to secure the best deal possible. The best deal possible may not be the best deal and may not be a good deal but it will try to secure the best deal possible. I believe Mandate has acted in good faith in that regard, working on behalf of its members. We continue to engage with Mandate and ICTU to assist in any way we can do so. The Government has had a good engagement with congress in recent days, examining possible changes to employment rights law that might give collective agreements more legal weight in situations like this but that will require a degree of work. The Minister of State, Deputy English, corresponded with Ms Patricia King, the head of ICTU, on this only the other day.

On two other points, it is disingenuous to make a connection between the Clerys dispute and this dispute. Clerys was a very different situation. There was a substantial property asset on O'Connell Street and because of that, the owners of that asset were able to make a settlement offer to the workers. The Debenhams case is very different. The only asset appears to be some stock in the stores, probably valued at approximately €10 million, and the value of that is reducing every day this dispute goes on. There are also many other claims on that asset. There are claims from workers who have unpaid pay and annual leave, claims from other businesses, for example, that have unpaid debts, claims from local authorities for unpaid rates and claims from the Irish public for unpaid taxes. The Revenue Commissioners have no authority in law to waive somebody's tax obligations. This is public money. It belongs to all the people of Ireland. There are times when the Revenue Commissioners are not able to collect certain taxes but they cannot simply waive tax when they are able to collect it. It would be very unfair on the Irish people for the Revenue Commissioners to suddenly be given the power, which they do not currently have and could not be given retrospectively anyway, to say that some companies and some people do not have to pay their taxes. If taxes can be recovered, the Revenue Commissioners have an obligation on behalf of the Irish people to make sure those taxes are paid.

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