Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

KPMG is taking €4.6 million from the Debenhams liquidation pot. It is taking this money to pay itself, and to pay for lawyers - in some cases for court actions taken against workers - for security, leases and warehouses where it has stored the goods that it smuggled out in the dead of night in order to cheat the picketing workers. If the Government had intervened after 50 days, as opposed to 250 days, it would have saved the vast bulk of this expenditure. In my opinion, that money should have been used to top up the workers' redundancy.

Does the Taoiseach accept that it was a serious mistake on the part of the Government not to have a serious intervention at a far earlier stage? Does he accept that those moneys could have been saved if that had been done? Even at this late stage, the €3 million that has been set aside for upskilling and training, not the most appropriate for many of the workers who are already in training and some already at the very end of their working careers, should be put directly in to top up the redundancies, as the shop stewards have demanded and asked for.

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