Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Barry for proposing this Bill, which the Labour Party will be supporting. Oftentimes we come in here and try to make Government the enemy. Sometimes that is theatrics and sometimes there is a genuine reason behind it. In this instance, the Government has absolutely no defence. It has no defence in respect of this issue, the treatment of the Debenhams workers or the Duffy Cahill report, which, as has been said, has been sitting on an office shelf somewhere since 2015. It is absolutely indefensible for any Minister or Minister of State to stand in this Chamber and defend the fact that the recommendations of the Duffy-Cahill report still have not been implemented. It is absolutely inevitable that we will be back here again and again. As a result of the nature of the pandemic and the capitalist society in which we operate, companies will utilise this pandemic to force through redundancies. To deal with this on a case-by-case basis is to fundamentally fail the workers. The Minister of State can list the individual things the Government has done for the Debenhams workers, but to do so is to completely miss the point.

Last November, Neasa Cahill and Kevin Duffy appeared before an Oireachtas committee. They said that company law did not need to be amended in order to implement the recommendations of their report. What did Government do in December? It asked the Company Law Review Group to review any company law that may need to be amended, despite the evidence that those who wrote the report gave to an Oireachtas committee. Now the Minister of State comes in here and insults the lot of us with a year-long delay to this Bill.

Every time we bring up issues of workers' rights, we are insulted by the Government. We were accused of virtue signalling when we brought in legislation on sectoral pay agreements. It was the same when we brought in a motion on youth unemployment and when we spoke about the lack of sick pay during a pandemic. What did the Government do? It said we will talk about it in six months' time. As we quite rightly said, no other sector of Irish society would have to wait so long - for six years - for the implementation of a report that does not go as far as this legislation. This is a reasonable report written by reasonable people which aims to prevent the very issue we are talking about today. In my own constituency, there are two instances of redundancies in Baldoyle affecting a total of 540 workers. How many more will there be over the coming months and years? Somebody in the Minister of State's position will trot in here and say that it is a difficult situation but that one must understand company law and that all of these individual circumstances are different. This will be said even though the Government has had a report since 2015 that would ensure that, in such circumstances, workers would not have to spend 400 days protesting to stand up for their rights. The Government has absolutely no defence.

We in the Labour Party pay tribute to the Debenhams workers and other workers who, over many years, have taken a stand in this regard. We are sick, tired and sore of being forced to go down to picket lines with workers who should be sorted out at the start.

There is no glory or honour from a Government point of view in saying it has respect for Debenhams workers or whatever other band of workers there may be in the future. The Government has the capacity and ability to sort this out now, so that other workers do not have to go through the same heartbreak in the future. What is the point of politics or legislative processes? What is the point of the over and back in this Chamber or of commissioning a report? What is the point in telling us that it will take one year or asking the Company Law Review Group to do its work when the Government does not do anything about a review for six years? It is absolutely indefensible. The Government has no defence.

Once again, I and Deputies from other political parties will say the very same thing and we will get another response from another Minister or Minister of State who will say "Well, you know, we will have a look." As has been correctly said, we will hopefully get a resolution to the Debenhams issue. The Minister cannot come in here in some months' time when this inevitably happens again and say, with a straight face, that this is a particular situation, as the Tánaiste is so well-practised in doing.

In any other aspect of public life or public policy, legislation can be rammed through in jig-time. This is why people sometimes lose faith in politics, Departments and Ministers. The Government asked the workers to put faith in the review and report and to trust the process, which the Clerys workers also did at one point, but six years after the report has been done, there is nothing.

I suggest that the Minister come to the House next week. We will all forfeit whatever time is necessary for the Minister to implement the recommendations of the Duffy Cahill report so that we are not back here in a number of months' time dealing with what I fear will be an inevitable cascade of redundancies, for which companies will no doubt use the pandemic as cover. There are 540 such redundancies already in Baldoyle. If this was happening in Ballyhaunis, we would all hear about it.

I ask the Minister to do his work. The Debenhams workers have done their work, having spent 400 days on the picket. None of us wants to see another band of workers go through the same thing. Six years is not good enough. I suggest that the Government do what it was asked to do six years ago by implementing the recommendations of the report. Do not insult the authors of the report by completely contradicting them only one month after they come before an Oireachtas committee.

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