David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to join with others in expressing my shock and sadness at the closure of Clerys department store. I understand it was the first custom-built department store in the world. I always used it and found the staff to be unfailingly courteous. I suppose there was an old-world air about it, apart from the little cloches of hired-out spaces where Lancôme, Yves Saint Laurent and the rest of them roosted. There was something lovely and significant about the place, and it is a really iconic building at the heart of O'Connell Street, one of the very few fine buildings left in O'Connell Street.

One wonders about these Gordon Brothers gentlemen. The last time Clerys was taken over by a collection of yanks, they fired a lot of old people out of it without paying their proper redundancy. We should use this opportunity to examine the whole way in which redundancy is used by these people, particularly when there are takeovers. I would love to have an accountant's view of the way in which this was handled. First of all, they bought the place for €1 million plus a €13 million debt which was subsequently run down. They then sold a building, which reduced their entire cost to €11 million, and they are reputed to have sold it on for €29 million. That leaves €18 million in their pockets, yet they are kicking off with their long-term employees. I think it is an absolute disgrace.

I call on Gordon Brothers to honour its obligations to its employees. It is not good enough for American companies to use this country as a kind of offshore hedge fund shopping area, where the natives will sing dumb and put up with whatever is done to them.

I did not know about the meeting and am sorry Sinn Féin misbehaved, if they did so - I cannot comment on that as I was not there. Today is a very busy day for me, but in my heart I am strongly in solidarity with the Clerys workers and very much hope something can be done for them.

I received a letter today from a friend of mine whose partner works in Clerys. He came home from a late-night shift delighted with himself because he had made the company €114,000 that day. Yet the next day, he found the place was closed and, the day after that, he was let go without so much as an apology. I find it deeply shocking. If this is capitalism, let us have communism.