Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Some sort of legislative response to the scandalous situation that faced the Debenhams workers has been a long time coming. Those workers were forced to engage in a strike for 406 days because of the absolutely despicable manner in which Debenhams laid them off. It made them all redundant and then refused to honour the collective agreement to give them two weeks' statutory redundancy plus two weeks' pay per year of service. This had been promised in a collective agreement. There had been cases before this, such as Clerys, Vita Cortex and La Senza. There has been a litany of these cases where there were collective redundancies of a large number of workers who had given loyal service to companies and generated large profits for those companies, and those workers were left absolutely high and dry. The law has allowed this to happen.

In the case of Debenhams, despite an heroic struggle the workers got nothing. Debenhams got away with it. The public were forced to step in and pay the two weeks' statutory redundancy. The Government provided a pretty miserable training fund but the workers were deprived of their two weeks' statutory redundancy plus two weeks' pay per year of service. This was a disgrace when we consider that some of the workers had worked 20, 25 or 30 years for the company.

The workers received notice of their redundancy via email, having previously been given commitments and promises by the company that there was no suggestion they were going to be made redundant and that Covid that was the reason they were being temporarily laid off. They discovered by email that all 1,000 of them were gone and were being left with absolutely nothing. I commend the workers on fighting an incredible battle for 406 days.

Much of the battle these workers fought was not only about their own situation but about their determination to make sure it would never happen again to another group of workers. There had been promises after Clerys with the Duffy Cahill report that these issues would be addressed and that other groups of workers would not be shafted the way Clerys workers, and the others before them whom I have also mentioned, had been shafted. We had many promises by the Government during the course of the Debenhams dispute, and multiple debates on motions in the House, that the issues would be addressed. This is the history and the background. As I read it, while some measures are welcome, the Bill is extremely limited and does not really do what is necessary to prevent all of this from happening again. No doubt we will scrutinise it on Committee Stage.

The critical issue of changing the order of preference for creditors to put the workers at the top is not addressed in the Bill. This is the key change that needs to happen. The idea that the workers who generate the value of a company and who generated its profits for decades could be left at the bottom of the list where they do not get anything, or that a company could walk away without honouring its collective agreement for redundancy payments, are not being addressed. All we are speaking about in the Bill, as I understand it and the Minister can correct me if I am wrong, is that it requires that there be a consultation period. There will be a 30-day consultation period and there is clarification that liquidators would have certain obligations in terms of providing information to workers and that there would be pretty limited fines if they do not do so.

The Bill does not really address the fundamental problem. If we look at the Debenhams case, there was supposedly some level of consultation but it was a joke. The workers were just told porkies. For example, they were told the large amounts of revenue that the company was continuing to generate on debenhams.iewould be available to pay for the redundancies. In fact, the company had ensured that all the money went to Debenhams UK. The company then loaded €200 million in debt onto the Irish company, essentially meaning that any remaining assets were wiped out. In what was a tactical liquidation, this was a way to sell off parts of the company, including the Danish wing. A consortium of hedge funds and banks was set up and walked away with tens of million of euro while the workers got absolutely shafted. The consortium was able to manipulate, through the various subsidiaries and wings of the company, the financial position of Debenhams Ireland to rob the Debenhams workers of their just desserts.

Those matters are not really being addressed. They should be made criminal offences. If I am reading this correctly, and I have not studied it at all in forensic detail, workers who are not given the proper consultation and information in this context can go to the WRC. It should, however, be a flipping criminal offence to do what was done to the Debenhams' workers. This is what needs to happen. I refer to the lies they were told by the company about its financial position. Serious punitive measures must be taken to deal with companies that treat workers in this way.

As already stated, the critical measure in this regard concerns putting the workers at the top of the list of creditors. This would rectify the issue of companies being able to, essentially, manipulate their financial position to rob workers of their proper redundancy entitlements. There should also be a legal requirement for collective agreements to be honoured. I refer to the sort of collective agreements the Debenhams' workers had, which led them to believe they were safe and would get their two-plus-two entitlements in the case of redundancy.

I doubt very much whether the workers have seen this legislation yet. Interestingly, and the Minister should be aware of this fact, their film has gained large audiences all over the world. The workers will be in London at the end of this week for the premiere of the film "406 Days" in that city. It is getting a huge response. I think these workers, though, will be very disappointed that this is all the Government can come up with as a legislative response to the situation they faced.

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