Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Company Law Review Group, CLRG, is a statutory advisory body charged with advising the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment on matters pertaining to company law. Its membership is broad and representative of all stakeholders, including employee and employer representative groups, the Revenue Commissioners, insolvency and legal practitioners as well as regulators. The members have an expertise in company law and provide a well-rounded analysis on the issues that come before them for consideration.

As part of the CLRG work programme, the Tánaiste requested they consider whether the legal provisions on collective redundancies and the liquidation of companies effectively protect the rights of workers as a matter of priority. A report was submitted to the Tánaiste, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, and me on 5 March 2021, which included an Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, minority report. The recommendation included a revisit by the CLRG of some of the provisions of its previous analysis of the issue. The CLRG report has now been published on the group's website following its consideration by our officials.

I and the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, have jointly looked at the legislative provisions that deal with redundancy and insolvency from both a company law and an employment perspective which come under our respective remits. The report submitted by the CLRG along with the ICTU minority report were considered by our officials and both our community law unit and employment law unit as part of the development of a plan for action on collective redundancies following insolvency.

Both the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, and I discussed this plan with stakeholders last week. It was well received and we had a good long discussion on it as well. We intend for the plan to be published shortly after the Tánaiste brings it through Cabinet.

The plan details short-term and medium-term measures that will further enhance the protection of employees in a way that does not overly impede businesses and their operations. In preparing the plan, both the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, and I, and the Department officials, consulted with trade unions and business representative bodies in identifying gaps or deficiencies in company employment laws that could improve the position of employees who find themselves in a redundancy situation due to a company insolvency.

The Government stands ready to respond as the plan progresses, as we committed to both in the programme for Government but also in July last when the Tánaiste met with Mandate and some of the Members in relation to Debenhams. At the time we committed to, if we could at all, strengthening the legal position in relation to the protection of employees in these situations. That is what we are trying to do.

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