Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join with Senator O'Loughlin. I have called in this House before for a debate on the future funding of higher education. We are no further along that track. While the announcement is welcome that will result in the reduction of fees for students at third level, it cannot be at the expense of core funding for higher education institutions. We need clarity on the future funding of those institutions.

I raise the question of approximately 100 Tesco security workers.These are workers who are employed directly by Tesco. Last Tuesday they were summoned into all of the stores throughout the country to be informed that a decision had been taken centrally to outsource their jobs to OCS security services. In many cases, many of these workers, who are all around the country, have been working for decades with Tesco and frequently have to deal with much antisocial behaviour. We know that, during the pandemic, retail workers and those working in our retail environments were front-line workers. Some of these workers were attacked and experienced physical abuse.

For Tesco, which normally has a reputation of being a good employer, simply to call in the 100 workers around the country - the unions were not notified about this - and essentially tell them the jobs would be outsourced or Tesco may - the word used was "may" - be able to find them a job within the existing stores is the sharpest example I have come across in a long time of HR and industrial relations practice. Tesco is a highly profitable store. Tesco is making billions here in Ireland. It generally has a reputation as a good employer. I understand the unions, Mandate and SIPTU, were due to meet with Tesco management on Thursday.

We need to send out a very clear message that it is totally unacceptable that this sort of sharp industrial relations practice is being engaged in and that we, as public representatives, are hugely appreciative of the front-line retail workers and, particularly, those security workers in our supermarkets over the past two years, but indeed over many years. I would hope that, in raising this issue here, it would communicate our anger and annoyance at the approach of Tesco management.