Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 11, to delete line 4 and substitute the following: “(b) an employees’ recognised trade union and/or an employees’ representative.”.”.

This amendment seeks to insert that when a petition for the winding-up of a company is being made to the High Court, employees and their recognised trade unions are notified. The ICTU recommended to the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment that this should be extended, for the avoidance of doubt, to include a trade union of which the employees are members.

The legislation before us imposes an obligation on the directors of a company to inform employees or their representative of the intention to seek the winding-up of a company. The proposed new subsection (1A) to be inserted in section 571 of the Companies Act 2014 simply refers to an obligation to inform employees. I believe it should also expressly provide that a trade union would be entitled to be heard by the High Court in the application for the winding-up of a company. That is, in fairly simple terms, what this amendment seeks to do.

I thank the Minister of State and his officials for their engagement on my amendments, which has been fantastic. Any amendments I have proposed have been in line with strengthening this and making it more inclusive. That is exactly what this is intended to do. While it might seem unlikely a trade union would be left out, making them explicitly part of it means they would explicitly be part of the legal process.

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