Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the workers from Iceland here today and they are up in the Gallery. I hope everyone welcomes them. They have been busy campaigning, unionising and some of them occupying their stores where they are losing their jobs. We have just learned that five more stores have pulled down the shutters today without any consultation with workers. The issue of the Iceland workers has been raised several times by us and others on the floor of the House. The frequent answer which the Taoiseach gives me is that they have to wait to engage with the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, to get justice, but, in this case, justice delayed is certainly justice denied.

Molly Prendergast, who is sitting in the Gallery, is owed a staggering €1,700 in wages. She is one of 40 complaints that have gone to the WRC. She and her mother are both waiting for wages owed to them since the spring. They worked in the Northside Shopping Centre. Workers like Molly, and indeed like Donna and her colleagues, who are occupying the Talbot Street store, and they should not have to do this - sit in a store all day and sleep there all night to demand justice - are being left behind by the Government. Will the Taoiseach please encourage the Government or ensure it uses its influence, as it did with Tara Mines last weekend, to expedite talks in the WRC to get a resolution for these workers?

See this speech in context