Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the issue of the closure of Clerys and the unceremonious dumping of 130 direct employees and some 430 others who worked within the store. The Taoiseach has described the manner in which all this happened as "insensitive" but that is the wrong word. The manner in which all this happened is absolutely scandalous and the righteous anger of the workers and, more broadly, of the public was in plain view outside the store yesterday where workers met to assert their fundamental right to respect at work and to protest at the manner in which Clerys was closed and their livelihoods snatched from them.

As the Tánaiste knows, the workers were given no notice, no explanation and deserved, apparently, no regard or consideration, despite that many of them had given literally their entire working lives to Clerys. What is most scandalous in this whole scenario is that all these events were planned and did not happen by accident. I have heard some say that it would have taken a month, possibly, for management and owners to manoeuvre and choreograph the sequence of events and, more scandalously again, all of this, it seems, was entirely legal. We have a scenario where Gordon Brothers, vulture capitalists from Boston, walk away with their pockets full to the tune of €29 million while workers and the State are left to pick up the pieces.

I have three specific issues I wish to raise with the Tánaiste. First, for the workers in the here and now, I ask her to outline the situation with regard to the processing of their individual claims, that is, their right to back pay, holiday pay and their redundancy entitlements. Second, as far as I am aware, Natrium Limited, which has acquired Clerys, continues to refuse to meet the workers or their representatives. Third, and most importantly in the long term, will the Tánaiste outline her plans to amend legislation or introduce new legislation to ensure scandals such as this are squarely illegal and workers are fully protected?

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle's Office for allowing us to raise this matter. Deputy McDonald has already covered many of the issues I wished to raise. It is extraordinary that people who have given 40 years' service would get less than five minutes' notice, if even that, if they happened to be at work at 5 o'clock on Friday last. If they were not at work, they heard about losing their job through Facebook or via text messages from colleagues. Deputy McDonald was being generous with the timeline she spoke about. This took months to plan. Finance had to be put in place, a sequence of events had to be put in place, professionals had to be appointed, advice had to be sought and paid for - very dearly - to allow the parties to do this, to allow them to circumvent both company and employment law to try to achieve their objectives. I refer in particular to section 224 of the new companies Bill which puts the responsibility of company directors to employees on a par with other duties and makes that responsibility equally enforceable. On the basis of that section, I would ask that the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement be asked to look at the sequence of events that led to the scenario that unfolded at 5 o'clock last Friday. In particular, the office should look at the events in the preceding 24 hours, where a company was sold and OCS Operations was put into liquidation with no regard for employees. Surely if the aforementioned section of the Companies Bill is to mean anything, we should be able to utilise it now.

I acknowledge the response of the Department of Social Protection in terms of making officials available to the workers today at Liberty Hall. Will the Tánaiste clarify that those redundancy payments will be dealt with as soon as possible and that the standard delays one would expect will not arise given the very specific circumstances of this case?

Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I too raise the circumstances surrounding the closure of the most famous store in Ireland and the sacking of 460 employees, 130 of whom were employed directly with the remainder employed by concession holders. I am very concerned at the manner in which this closure took place. A company came in, made a sale to another company which then divided its purchase into two legal entities, with a 100% profit being made on one entity and the other going straight into liquidation. This all took place in very secretive circumstances and would have required collusion over a period of months to bring about that legal course of action. It involved both manipulation and exploitation. There was a total lack of concern for the loyal workforce who had provided great service to Clerys for many years.

This matter must be addressed and redressed in a robust fashion. The Tánaiste has already dealt with the first aspect of it, namely, the workers. She has met the workers, along with the Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Nash. There has also been engagement with the liquidators and the trade unions representing the workers, including SIPTU and Mandate. The Minister made a team available today in Liberty Hall to deal with the entitlements of the workforce. All that is absolutely essential and is being done expeditiously. The second aspect of this is that we must take whatever steps are necessary to rebalance company law in order that such ruthless vulture capital transactions cannot take place in the future. Clearly the law at present is heavily weighted in favour of the business and employer and leaves the workforce entirely vulnerable.

I note that the Taoiseach has the Minister of State, Deputy Nash, to provide a report to him and I hope that will be done in a very timely fashion. I also hope that any report on dealing with these abominable transactions which were carried out in such an underhand fashion will be forwarded to the company law review group. I also hope that all this will be done expeditiously in order that whatever measures are needed to ensure it does not happen again will be put in place urgently.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising this very important issue. This is an incredibly difficult time for the staff of Clerys who gave so much to the company and who have been treated appallingly. I hope the business owners involved in these transactions have some sense of business ethics, propriety and fair play, particularly for the workers, the employees of the concessionaires, the concessionaires themselves and the creditors of the company. At first glance, there are many questions to be answered here.

Prior to the termination of employment, there is an entitlement to minimum notice under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts. This basic entitlement was not afforded to the Clerys workers. I consider it imperative that workers are treated properly at all times and that they and their representatives are consulted on matters affecting their employment. It is totally unsatisfactory, inappropriate and unacceptable that entities involved in this transaction did not respect this concept. My Department and the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation will examine whether all aspects of the relevant legislation have been complied with, whether that legislation needs to be strengthened and if so how.

In the first instance, my thoughts are with the workers. I met with several workers this morning at a briefing session hosted by my Department to tell them of the welfare and employment supports we can provide. At briefings of this type, officials from the Department advise the employees who have lost their jobs on the Intreo process, jobseeker's payments, and redundancy and insolvency entitlements. They also provide information on other schemes, including rent supplement to which they may wish to have recourse. Information is also given on options and assistance available relating to work, and on the short-term enterprise allowance, as well as training and education options.

The Department will ensure that jobseeker's claims will not be delayed pending resolving individual issues on any leave accrued but not yet taken. This means that jobseeker's claims can be paid quickly, subject to usual criteria, and reconciled as required at a future date. The Department is informing its network of local offices in the greater Dublin area of these developments to ensure that claims from affected workers are processed in a speedy and sensitive manner.

I express my gratitude to SIPTU and Mandate for their excellent support in this regard. Normally the services of the Department would be made available on the company's premises, as people will recall with the closure of Mount Carmel Hospital. In this case, as we saw in the pictures, the locks were put on the doors. I am thankful to SIPTU for making its premises available to us near the workers' place of employment and also facilitating the liquidators to be there this morning. A significant number of the workers were there today. This engagement will provide information to all workers, including those employed by concession holders.

The primary focus of my Department at this time is to ensure the efficient and prompt taking of claims for jobseeker's benefit to ensure that the workers get their entitlements at the earliest possible opportunity. In addition to the range of information and advice being provided by the Department of Social Protection, officials from the National Employment Rights Authority and representatives of the liquidators, KPMG, attended to provide information to the affected workers.

A representative of the liquidator has verbally advised the Department of Social Protection that all staff have been made redundant and that P45s will issue this week. I understand it is possible that one or two staff from the payroll area in Clerys may be retained temporarily to assist with the liquidation. The liquidator will seek, on behalf of workers, payment from the insolvency payments scheme in respect of unpaid wages, accrued but untaken leave, and payment in lieu of statutory notice and statutory redundancy under the redundancy payments scheme. It is intended that individual meetings will be held between the liquidator and the workers affected to determine, on an individual basis, the extent of liabilities. The Department will deal promptly with individual applications submitted in respect of the insolvency payments scheme by the liquidator.

I hope that is helpful, particularly to the workers involved, to whom I explained much of this in person this morning. They were accompanied by various union officials and shop stewards who had been working in Clerys. I met people who had more than 40 years' service and whose life was wrapped up in the store. As somebody who is a lifelong customer of the store, as are members of my family, like many Dubliners, I am personally knowledgeable of the kind of service this shop has given. We will seek to ensure workers obtain all their entitlements as quickly as possible.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the interaction between the Department of Social Protection and the workers. I can only imagine how utterly depressing it has been notwithstanding the Tánaiste's efforts for these workers. As she said, many of them have very long service. In truth many of them feel they will not be returning to work and the damage is done. It seems that we cannot in any way recover the lost ground for these workers. They are left with what amounts to the bare minimum. These workers have been placed in a most degrading position. As legislators, we cannot miss the depth of anger and the sense of degradation and disrespect these workers quite correctly feel.

Having acknowledged the efforts and interaction of the Department of Social Protection, I cannot help but be left with the sense that in respect of the bigger picture, the Government is again kicking the can down the road. Albeit that Clerys is different in its specifics, we have been down this road before and not in the dim and distant past. We have seen Waterford Crystal, Vita Cortex, and La Senza. There is a long list of scenarios in which rogue employers very cynically trod all over their workforce. We know the law needs to change.

We need to hear from the Government on when that legislative change will be made to ensure the sense of degradation being experienced by the former Clerys workers will not be visited on any other worker in the future.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Tánaiste for her response. It strikes me that the differences between the domestic economy and the multinational sector are pointed up in this instance. There were reports in the media for many months on the sale of Clerys. If there was speculation about the future of a multinational that employed 600 or so people, the early warning unit of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Employment would be on top of the issue straightaway in an effort to find out was happening. That does not appear to have happened in this case. It is difficult to get one's head around the fact that this asset, located in the middle of O'Connell Street, is worth approximately €30 million and that the directors and faceless people have walked away, leaving the taxpayer to meet the redundancy bills and workers bereft of dignity and self-respect. Surely, there is some mechanism by which we can put a lean on the money derived from the sale of the building to ensure we get the taxpayers' money back.

The Tánaiste has mentioned that she and her family were customers of Clerys. What has happened again points to the need for an examination of the future of the retail sector. People are not engaging with the retail industry in the same way as they used to. It is too major an employer to be left to the vagaries of technology and online purchasing. We need a retail strategy to protect employment and allow retail space to increase. The following is a quotation from an article in the Irish Independent on 10 May, the author of which I will not name, on the sale of Clerys:

It's good news for the capital: The fact that there is interest in something like Clerys is a good indication of domestic economic recovery.

I again ask what kind of recovery is it?

Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Tánaiste's speedy and comprehensive response in meeting the needs of the workers and thank her for providing them with information to enable them to deal expeditiously with their entitlements. I also welcome her commitment to investigate the reason minimum notice was not provided in accordance with the employment Acts. I would like to see that issue fully investigated, with the appropriate sanctions applied.

In the broader context of the collapse of the economy in recent times and given the resultant huge number of impaired assets, many of which have been sold by NAMA to vulture capitalists, there is a danger that a number of these vulture capitalists who are anxious to make a quick buck will re-enter the Irish market, discarding workers and imposing redundancy and welfare payments on the State, rather than meet the costs themselves. For this reason, it is extremely important that we revisit the relevant legislation as rapidly as possible to ensure what has happened in this instance will not happen again. We must also ensure the recovery taking place in the economy is based on respect for the workforce and a sense of fairness. We do not want to witness this type of vulture capitalist approach which is ruthless and profit driven, with no concern for the workforce which makes all businesses in the country profitable. We need to act swiftly in terms of ensuring something of this nature will not recur. We also need to ensure domestic companies and employers will stand apart and make it clear that they will have nothing to do with this practice.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I again thank Deputies Mary Lou McDonald, Dara Calleary, Joe Costello and Eamonn Maloney for raising this issue. Many of the people concerned have been employed in Clerys for all of their working lives, in many cases alongside family members. Among the group of people I met this morning was a man who had more than 40 years service and who told me that Clerys was his family. We can all appreciate the level of commitment of the staff.

The people who are shamed and disgraced by what has happened in this case are those who took part in the arrangements to do this, not Clerys' workers. Respect for the workers is exceptionally high among the people of Dublin and Ireland. There are many good employers in the country who must be appalled at what has happened to a group of workers in an entirely undeserved way. There has been a huge amount of positive contact between trade unions and employer organisations to ensure we will have a level of decency and regulation to provide workers with decent terms and conditions. Further measures are also being introduced. There is legislation before the Dáil on collective bargaining which has been sought by the trade unions for many decades and that I am confident will have the support of most Members and parties.

The people who should be ashamed of themselves are those who set out to approach this issue in a particularly technical manner. We do not yet know the full details of what happened. We have read in the newspapers about various stratagems that were employed. As I said, we will be examining all of the issues involved. I know that my colleagues, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Employment, Deputy Richard Bruton, and the Minister of State, Deputy Gerald Nash, will be extremely concerned that legislation introduced by that Department could be used in this way to circumvent people's genuine rights. As Minister for Social Protection, I am concerned about the implications in terms of the social insurance fund, to which everybody who pays PRSI contributes, in order that it will be available when needed. We will be examining this matter to see whether all aspects of the relevant legislation have been complied with and whether that legislation needs to be strengthened.

I agree with Deputy Joe Costello that it is important this not be allowed to happen again. We will have to examine what happened in this case. We will, for example, need to examine the tax position to see whether over-aggressive taxation measures were involved. I have heard it suggested this might have been arranged, perhaps in secret - almost certainly so - over a number of months. I do not know whether that is correct because we do not yet have all of the information. My Department was informed informally today by the mediators that all of the staff had been made redundant and that P45s would issue this week.

Those here who have had some involvement in labour law and this type of situation will know this initial information allows for the issuing of the redundancy notices, all of which are part of a process, in terms of the legislation, in the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. I undertake that all of the matters will be addressed as quickly as possible in accordance with the law. It is now possible, with all the reforms we have made in the Intreo system, to pay people relatively quickly. That was not always possible, but we can now do that as a result of the new systems. I hope the Department will be able to do this over the next few days.

We will liaise closely with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, but our Department pays out the redundancy payments. Reference was made to Vita Cortex and other cases. In the case of Vita Cortex, once the Department of Social Protection got the required information and once the relevant requirements were complied with, the workers were paid within a very short period. Hopefully in this case, if the requirements are met as quickly as possible, we can make arrangements to meet the entitlements of the workers in regard to redundancy as quickly as possible.