David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tomorrow, hundreds of former Waterford Crystal workers will protest outside the gates of this Parliament for their just entitlements, their pensions and the compensation they are rightly due because of the failure of the State to meet its obligations under the EU insolvency directive. It is again a case of workers having to take to the streets to get their just entitlements. They were here a few months ago, as the Leader is aware. I held an information briefing in the AV Room of the LH2000. The legal representatives, the union and the workers spelled out exactly what they were seeking, which was simply a meeting with one of the Ministers to discuss how the workers would be compensated. On behalf of the cross section of Oireachtas Members who attended that meeting, I was asked to write to the Minister for Finance and to the Minister for Social Protection. Both replied to say that they would not meet the workers. We then went back and asked their officials to meet with the trade union, and the officials have refused to meet them. It is simply not good enough that the State is again dragging its heels, hiding behind the courts and not compensating these workers. They deserve to be properly compensated. The State has been found, in the European Court of Justice, to have failed in its obligations to those workers for not properly transposing a European Union directive. Why are we again making it more difficult for those workers to get justice? Why are we constantly delaying the time when those workers get paid?

The Leader will know that those workers deserve their pensions and compensation, and if they are to receive that compensation, it would be a significant boost for the local economy in Waterford city and for the south east. More important, it is about justice for those workers. I ask the Leader, and every Senator in the House, to use their influence to ensure that justice is done for the former Waterford Crystal workers.