Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I think we will to have to agree to disagree on the Debenhams issue. When the Minister of State addressed questions on this issue in June of last year he said that on the Tánaiste’s direction, a review was to be undertaken into the matter, including legislation in this space to determine if they could do anything to strengthen the position. Part of the Government’s stated plan was to involve some of the recommendations of the Duffy Cahill report but not all six of them. Can the Minister of State provide a rationale as to why the Government is not now considering all six recommendations to be implemented? I ask this because one should consider the fact that Mr. Duffy advised the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment that the employment law proposals in the report were part of a package that should be implemented in full rather than picking and choosing those which one liked, otherwise it would not make sense and would be incapable of operation. We have a real concern that when the employment supports are withdrawn, which they will be, and when we move out of the pandemic, many companies will collapse with people losing their jobs.

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