Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

For over a year, Debenhams workers waged a heroic struggle against the loss of their jobs and their treatment by their employer. In many respects, their struggle epitomised the treatment of some workers by some employers in the course of the pandemic. Yesterday, the Government announced that employees who had lost their job during Covid would now be able to seek redundancy and it announced a special payment to workers who have lost out on reckonable service as a consequence of the pandemic. The statement also said that the Government would take a flexible and discretionary approach to the granting of that payment.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, will the Debenhams workers, who were very seriously affected by the pandemic, be able to apply for and access the special payment? Second, can the Government act to ensure that the €3 million training fund that was agreed at the conclusion of that dispute is actually distributed?

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