Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In recent months, we have seen announcement after announcement of layoffs across many big technology companies, in particular, in Dublin. The impact of these redundancies has obviously been huge for those directly and indirectly impacted, not only in my own constituency of Dublin Bay South but across the country. The impact is more worrying where there are concerns regarding a lack of compliance by companies with redundancy rules, such as the 30-day statutory consultation period.

I encourage all tech workers to join a trade union to ensure rights are protected. While I welcome the announcement today of Cabinet plans to strengthen rights around collective redundancies, I ask that the Government would go further. I believe we need to see comprehensive strengthening of collective bargaining rights and the Government should ensure a right to organise to ensure that workers can insulate themselves from the worst impacts of layoffs. Does the Tánaiste acknowledge that this series of redundancies proves the need to introduce a right to organise in unions and commit to establishing a task force to support tech workers now facing layoffs?

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