Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I begin by welcoming the new Local Link service that will start this Friday between Montpelier, Castleconnell, Lisnagry and Newport. The service is badly needed since we lost our post office last month. It is very welcome. The bus service will be in operation for the next couple of months. We are expecting our new post office to open in February. I was pleased to meet with Local Link representatives both in Montpelier and Castleconnell ahead of this service being rolled out. Indeed, I am optimistic that there will be further transport improvements for my village of Castleconnell in the coming weeks and the new year.

The issue I want to raise this morning however is that of Rehab Group because in April of last year, it let 38 workers go and abandoned a long-standing redundancy deal. The impact of that deal was that instead of a worker with 30 years service getting €60,000 in redundancy, he or she got just €21,000. What I find shocking is that we are talking about workers with vision impairments, learning difficulties, and Down's syndrome. The good news is that the Labour Court has ruled definitively and appointed an independent financial investigator who established that the Rehab Group actually has millions of euro at its disposal and has no difficulty in paying the original redundancy package.The worrying part is that Rehab has responded with silence. The result has been that these workers, some of the most vulnerable in the State, are still waiting some 20 months later for the redundancy payments they should have got from Rehab. On its website, Rehab states that it wishes to advocate on behalf of people with disabilities. Frankly, I find it shocking that the very people the organisation has said it advocates for are those it has abandoned on this occasion.

This is where the Seanad could help. I am considering proposing a motion, without debate, for all of us to simply call on Rehab to do what is correct and to honour the Labour Court recommendation. I ask for the Acting Leader's support with this. This is not a party political issue. It is about doing the right thing for workers who have given a lifetime of service and found themselves, to date, abandoned by Rehab. I think the company had hoped this issue would go away. On behalf of my group, Sinn Féin, and my union, SIPTU, I assure Rehab this issue will not go away until such time as it honours the redundancy agreement and looks after these workers.