Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What the Deputy is saying, essentially, is that whatever is due to the various Government Departments, to Revenue or in terms of social protection should be waived, if I understand him correctly. That creates a very significant potential incentivisation for others in the future to welch on their obligations to workers, knowing the State will pick up the tab. Essentially, that means creating a new statutory redundancy scheme in an ad hocway and simply saying the State will pick up the tab anyway, which would then incentivise employers to prioritise other issues for themselves and other creditors. I am not sure that is the simple or easy way out of this either.

That said, I am again going to bring all parties from the Government side to meet on this to see if we can develop mechanisms to try to get this resolved. The workers have been out for a long, long time and it has been very difficult for them. They have been treated shabbily. I will see what we can do in this regard.

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