Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In respect of the compensation period, the Minister of State made an equation with businesses that are taken over or that are for sale and said three to five years is the norm. In the majority of those cases, a company that knows it is going to be sold or taken over in the next two or three years takes measures to increase its sales or do something to make itself more profitable. However, those people did not have that timeframe. This came as a bolt out of the blue to them. The Minister of State is not comparing like with like when he says the compensation period should be three to five years and anything outside of that has never been heard of. In many cases, companies have a period in which they can boost their sales or profitability but that period is not afforded to those people at all.