Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to speak in support of the Companies (Protection of Employees' Rights in Liquidations) Bill 2021, which has been properly renamed the Debenhams Bill. I will be voting for it. It is a simple, straightforward Bill putting redundant workers top of the list of creditors in the case of insolvency and it represents an important step forward. Earlier in the course of this dispute, I moved a Private Members' motion calling for legislation to implement the recommendations of the Duffy Cahill report. That report was commissioned by the then Minister, Deputy Bruton, following the technical insolvency at Clerys in Dublin. The implementation of that report would have made it much more difficult for companies to engage in technical insolvencies. It would have avoided the situation in which the former Debenhams workers find themselves in. The previous Government promised yet another review, the same tactics used to avoid taking action on the Duffy Cahill report and now with the Government's amendment, it continues to try to drag out and kick the can down the road for another 12 months.

This week will mark 400 days of struggle by the Debenhams workers.

It is a tremendous symbol of their courage and their solidarity with each other and with other retail workers who may face the same difficulties as they have. They know that legislation is too late for them but they have expressed again and again their determination to achieve change for workers in the future. I salute them for that. They have been treated abysmally over the last 400 days due to strike-breaking by the liquidators, KPMG, with the support of the Garda and the courts. Debenhams has been able to take hold of its stock. KPMG will receive a generous fee as the liquidator. The workers are now in a situation where they have to consider their position and will probably vote to reluctantly accept the offer of a €3 million retraining or back to school fund. They will not get their due under the agreement that Debenhams made with their union, for which they made considerable concessions about their working conditions.

Yesterday morning, I took part in a Zoom meeting in which the Debenhams shop stewards in Waterford explained that in the early hours of Tuesday morning, pickets found themselves facing six vanloads of gardaí, including members of the public order unit. At least on this occasion they did not seem to suffer the heavy-handed and, to put it bluntly, violent action taken by gardaí at the picket on Henry Street in Dublin. Recently the Tánaiste and the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Varadkar, who has responsibility for this area, spoke about the role of essential workers in the coronavirus crisis and recognised that many of these workers are low paid and have limited rights such as the right to sick pay. I would go further. The capitalist society that the Minister of State so admires cannot function at any time without the labour of working people. Having said that, I welcome the Tánaiste's words on workers' rights. I genuinely hope they are sincere and well meant and will be translated into action.

I am supporting this Bill. Implementing the Duffy Cahill report would be a good start. The ball is in the Government and Minister's court. Please do not kick it into the long grass again. That has been disgraceful. These workers deserve respect for what they have done over the past 400 days.

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