Marie Moloney (Labour)

I, too, join my colleagues in wishing everybody a happy new year.

I wish to speak about the staff of Vita Cortex in Cork, having visited that plant during the Christmas period and having met with the staff in a dark, lonely and cold plant where they were spending their Christmas. This is a much wider issue than Vita Cortex alone. The same situation is going on all over Ireland, in every town and county, where small businesses and operators are closing down one business but still operating another. I understand and appreciate company law is very complex but it is very unfair that a company can continue to trade another viable company, with the same people, owners and directors, making money from other companies while letting the State pick up the tab for the people they have cast aside, some after 40 years of loyal service to that company. Will the Leader ask the Minister to intervene in this case? The minute the insolvency fund pays out the redundancy-----