Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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140. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the status of the implementation of the Duffy Cahill report; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24585/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Duffy Cahill report, which was commissioned by the Government in the aftermath of the Clery's closure, highlighted how the issues raised by the event and the subsequent legal cases are highly complex.

The Duffy-Cahill Report was sent to the Company Law Review Group (CLRG) in 2016 for its consideration as part of the work of that group in advising the Minister for Business Enterprise and Innovation on any changes that it considered necessary with respect to the protection of employees and unsecured creditors.  (The CLRG is a statutory body comprising members drawn from regulatory, legal, business and employee interests).

The CLRG, as part of its deliberations, also considered related amendments proposed by Deputy Nash (then Senator Nash) to the Companies (Accounting) Bill in April/May 2017.

The CLRG's ‘Report on the Protection of Employees and Unsecured Creditors’ was presented to the Minister for Business Enterprise and Innovation in June 2017 and published on the website of the CLRG.  It did not include the implementation of the Duffy-Cahill Report or the Senator Nash proposals in its recommendations.

It is clear that the implementation of the recommendations in the Duffy-Cahill Report give rise to a host of complex issues and that any proposal to progress them would require further careful consideration involving consultation with many stakeholders.

A commitment has been made in the Programme for Government to review the Companies Acts with a view to addressing the practice of trading entities splitting their operations between trading and property, with the result that the trading business goes into insolvency and the assets are taken out of the original business.  This will be progressed by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. 

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.