Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That reply was very disappointing. The Minister of State said the Government would do all it can to protect the jobs, but is it going to do anything, however small, to protect the workers' collective agreement? Of course, we all hope that it will not come to it and that the jobs can be saved. We all recognise, as the Minister of State pointed out, that high-street retail is under pressure. That is nothing compared with the pressure these workers will be under working through the busiest time of year in a crowded setting, during a pandemic, when at the end of the season, they will not even know whether their collective agreement will be honoured. They fear that they will end up as Debenhams mark two. They are appealing to the Government to intervene and to do everything in its power to assist them in achieving the terms of their collective agreement. They are very anxious.

One would need a heart of stone not to have sympathy for those workers going in to work at the busiest time of year without knowing whether they will have jobs in January. Worse again, they do not know whether their collective agreement, which they have worked under and which was negotiated with their trade union, Mandate, will in fact be honoured. We cannot keep shrugging our shoulders and saying we hope there is not another Clerys, TalkTalk, La Senza or Debenhams. Successive Governments cannot keep letting down workers like this. They want to hear more than sympathy from the Minister of State. They want to know what the Government will do to protect their collective agreement.

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