Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

I see we have skipped over the Government slot.

Time and again, workers in the State have been left high and dry when companies collapse, not only through sudden unforeseen insolvency but, all too often, through a deliberate and tactical decision to shut down, to strip assets, to walk away from obligations to staff, to hide assets in corporate mazes, to deny workers what they are owed. Workers, who in many cases gave decades of loyal and long service, are left without wages, without redundancy, without any recognition and without answers.

This Bill is a necessary response to a long-standing injustice. As my colleagues have already pointed out, Sinn Féin will support it on Second Stage. However, let us be honest; it should never have taken this long to come before us. In 2020, more than 1,000 Debenhams workers were thrown to the wolves when their employer folded, not in an unavoidable liquidation but through an orchestrated tactical wind-down aimed at avoiding the payment of collective redundancy. In Waterford, those workers, who were mostly women, occupied and picketed their store for almost 400 days and nights. They spent 400 days defending their rights while this State defended the liquidator and the company that wriggled off the hook for paying these women. Over 30 gardaí were deployed to forcibly remove workers at midnight so that stock could be cleared from a shuttered store. The stock, Debenhams and the liquidator were protected but the workers were not.

Will the Minister of State and this Government apologise? We now have recognition in that the Government has finally seen the light and is moving this legislation. Will the Minister of State apologise in this Chamber to the Debenhams workers for what happened to them on the State's watch?

The Bill accepts that informal or tactical insolvency must be treated as what it is, a way of avoiding paying what is owed. It creates a mechanism to deem employers insolvent and allows workers to access the insolvency payment scheme even if an employer has not gone through a formal court process. That is overdue and welcome. It also provides a path for historical claims, recognising that many have already lost out. However, legislation alone is not enough. Workers need more than a pathway to partial redress. They need a guarantee that their rights will come first and not last and that, when businesses go under, wages, redundancy and collective agreements will not be treated as disposable. That is what we in Sinn Féin stand for. We have stood with workers on the picket line. I have stood with the Debenhams workers in Waterford. We have also stood with the Clerys workers, the Tara Mines workers and many others. We are clear that workers should never again have to fight for what they are owed from the side of the street while company directors swan off, moving on with impunity.

As others have said in this Chamber, this is part of a wider issue. Across the community and voluntary sector, thousands of workers are delivering essential public services but are underpaid and undervalued. In many cases, they are denied collective bargaining or trade union recognition. School secretaries and caretakers are currently balloting for industrial action. Wage theft remains a live issue that is not legislated for. Union recognition is denied as a right across all sectors. That is why we need more than piecemeal progress and why Sinn Féin has led with action in the North through the good jobs Bill put forward by the Minister, Caoimhe Archibald, which Deputy Bennett has already mentioned. We need something like that. We need a step change when it comes to respecting workers' rights. We believe in a fair economy where workers are not the last to be paid or the first to be forgotten. As I have said, this Bill is a step in the right direction but the real test will be how this State treats workers when the next crisis hits.

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