Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I did not raise it.

Senator O’Brien also referred to what I suspect is no more than a rumour that the District Courts in Dublin are to be closed. I certainly have not heard that. There was a positive move under the previous Government to move the very antiquated Criminal Court sittings in the Bridewell to the Criminal Court of Justice and a new setting. All criminal justice practitioners, service users, gardaí etc. appreciated that modernisation. I will certainly look into Senator O’Brien’s statement but if there is a programme of modernisation of District Courts throughout the country, that can only be welcomed. I have practised in sittings of the District Court outside of Dublin where it sits in hotel function rooms, community halls and other inappropriate spaces.

I ask the Leader to arrange a debate on the so-called phoenix syndrome exposed by the plight of the Paris Bakery workers from Moore Street who held a rally outside the Dáil earlier. This syndrome has been particularly marked in the restaurant industry, where employers abuse the principle of limited liability by closing down businesses and opening others under new brand or company names without paying outstanding debts to workers who are owed back payment of wages, holiday pay and so on. In the case of the Paris Bakery workers, they have been left owed some €100,000. They have been occupying the Moore Street premises since 23 May. Attempts have been made to reach resolution with the owners. Mandate and the Migrant Rights Centre of Ireland, among others, are supporting the workers but there is a bigger issue here of companies closing and failing to engage in an orderly winding down process to enable priority debts to be paid. This is a very serious difficulty and a number of other companies have engaged in similar tactics. We must examine how best to resolve issues for the workers, for example the insolvency payments scheme could be used to pay workers owed money In these circumstances who face serious consequences as a result of lack of payment.

I support the call made last week by Senator Hildegarde Naughton who called for an inquiry into the recent worrying revelations of the deaths of some 800 infants between 1925 and 1961 in a mother and baby home in Tuam in County Galway. I know considerable momentum has gathered around this as local historians have uncovered appalling information about these deaths and the way in which they went unreported and were hidden. We need to know more about what has happened there.