Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

This is a really relevant amendment and is particularly so tonight to workers across the country who work in The Body Shop. They have been told the Irish stores will be closed tomorrow. they are being closed by the new owners, Alma24. According to The Guardian, Alma24 has an owner and majority shareholder who is an executive with close links to Aurelius, a vulture fund that is well known for its asset stripping.

The stock will be cleared out of the Irish stores and the company is expected to go into liquidation next week.

Today, a bombshell was dropped on those workers. They were told they will not be paid for any or all work they performed between 11 and 28 February. They are also owed money for holidays. In the Cork shop, which I contacted this afternoon, five workers are employed and the owners owe those five workers more than €10,000. One staff member is owed more than €4,000. One of the workers is a single parent with three kids to take care of. Due to the fact that the 30-day consultation letter was only sent to the Minister yesterday, some of the workers may not be able to take alternative paid employment or claim jobseeker's benefit for more than four weeks. I ask for clarity on this from the Minister.

In the case of Debenhams, the stores were closed behind the backs of the workers during Covid, but workers took action to prevent the removal of stock and demand that they be paid their entitlements in full before that could happen. Should The Body Shop workers take a similar stand, not only would they have my full support but I am confident they would have the support of working people across the country who see this as scandalous treatment. The stores should not be closed or the stock removed before those workers have been paid in full.

I support the Bill to which these amendments are linked because it gives workers more rights to information in a consultation period, but it is a very weak Bill given that it provides workers with no more tangible benefit than that. If it is the best that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael can do, it says a lot about their commitment to advancing the interests of working people. I support the amendment from Deputy O'Reilly because it would provide a very tangible benefit, that is, preferential creditor access for workers. Workers should be at the top of the queue for payouts from the liquidation pot, not towards the back. They should not end up with little or nothing as we have seen so many times down through the years.

See this speech in context