Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Whatever about the finer details and implications of the matters concerning the Tánaiste yesterday, one implication is definitely that there are many groups of workers who are scratching their heads and wishing that they had such matey backchannels with the Tánaiste or Taoiseach of the day. One of those groups of workers that the Taoiseach has suggested it is in his DNA to communicate with is the Debenhams workers who have now been seven months on the picket line fighting for a just redundancy as we face into the winter months. They certainly have not enjoyed the level of access and communication they would like. Deputy Barry has sent an invitation to all Oireachtas Members to an online briefing at 2 o'clock today where the shop stewards will be briefing Oireachtas Members. They are hoping the Taoiseach or representatives from his office and the Tánaiste can make it to hear about their plight.

One very important development is that KPMG in an action that I regard as bullying and trying to demoralise these heroic, brave, decent, hard-working mostly women workers, is threatening to walk away from the liquidation process, offering them an even more insulting €500,000 when an already insulting €1 million was previously offered. It is suggesting that if the workers do not take this, nothing will be left for creditors, meaning even the State could lose out.

That should make the Government sit up and act in a way that it has so far failed to do to intervene for these workers, since Debenhams is effectively threatening the State as a creditor. All this is based on spurious claims which are being discussed at the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the failure of the Government to implement the Duffy-Cahill report and the way that companies like Debenhams hide assets which should be used in this case to pay a decent redundancy to workers. The online business and other Debenhams assets have been hidden even though Debenhams stood in court in April and said that an online business worth at least €30 million was an asset of the Irish company, which it is now claiming is an asset of the British company. All this is contrived to deny these workers a just redundancy and now, possibly, to rob Revenue and the State of money. Will this finally prompt the Taoiseach to engage with the Debenhams shop stewards to force the liquidator to sit down with those shop stewards to secure a just settlement where the actual, real assets of the company are used to give them the just redundancy and save them from having to stay on the picket line for the coming winter months?

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