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

The Deputy has just summed it up. His role is to blame Government, full stop. Ignore all the realities, ignore all the legal frameworks and all the challenges. His job is to blame Government and, perhaps, to undermine the trade union involved as well. There is a bit of that in his operation as well. I have picked that up during the course of this. Very often, the Deputy is not very strongly supportive of some of what might be considered mainstream trade unions. There is an element of that in his strategy as well.

These are very difficult issues to resolve and the manner of this liquidation left an awful lot to be desired. Of course it did. However, Government has not been the agency responsible for blocking anything. Anything Government can do, it has done, and Government is seeking to do more, if it can. If the Deputy is trying to create a new paradigm, on the other hand, that Government intervenes in every liquidation that happens in the retail sector, even the most recent ones, above and beyond statutory, then that is a different story, is it not? The Deputy would be better saying let us increase statutory all around for everything that happens, for every redundancy that happens.

What we are trying to do here, and because of the slippage of time and various other things, it has proved difficult, is do what we can to get something additional for the workers. That is our only objective and motivation and that is why we asked Kevin Foley if he would become involved to see if he could facilitate a resolution of this as quickly as possible. The workers have been out too long, they have been on picket too long, and it has been very difficult - extraordinarily difficult - for them and their families. It is not a political blame game and it should not be.

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