Deputy Mary Lou McDonald - speech from 8 Jul 2020

Go raibh agat, Ceann Comhairle. I want to raise today the issue of the Debenhams workers. I was very alarmed and disappointed yesterday, Taoiseach, with your response when these matters were raised. I think your response was lacklustre and certainly was not the type of response that I believe is required from government. The Debenhams workers, as you know, have been in dispute with their employer for now for some months. At the height of the COVID emergency, they've been on pickets. They're on the picket line still, 24-7, standing for their own rights to be treated with respect, but also fighting a battle that has a much wider significance than just Debenhams alone. Debenhams have used a tactical liquidation of their Irish stores to walk away from all of their responsibilities to their workers. It is now the intention of Debenhams to take possession of all assets and stock in their stores to funnel the profits back through their British operations and at the same time leaving their workers high and dry. Now, the Debenhams are not the first to be treated in this appalling manner by their employers, and because of government inaction, they will not be the last. The use of tactical liquidation is not new to this state. You will recall clearies in 2015 when, similarly, staff who had given a lifetime of service were unceremoniously dumped by their employers. They were left high and dry. They were left high and dry. They didn't receive their statutory redundancy lump sum. They never got monies owed in lieu of notice of redundancy or holiday pay, and the state was left to foot the bill. Well, this is the blueprint for what is happening in Debenhams, and there needs to be immediate intervention by the state and by government, because you will recall that in the case of clearies, at that time, we all said that this could never happen again, but it has. So now is the time for immediate and effective action. What the workers are looking for is not unreasonable. It's necessary. They want government to intervene with and to engage with KPMG, the liquidators, appointed by the UK parent company. They want government to directly intervene with the parent company itself. They want Debenhams to simply honour previous agreements to pay two weeks redundancy per year of service, in addition to the statutory redundancy. They want to be treated with respect. They do not want a situation where Debenhams can simply walk away. Taoiseach, I want to put it to you that it is now urgent that the government act. It is also urgent that we legislate. And I want you to move beyond the words that you said yesterday, which were equivocal and non-committal. I want to hear a firm commitment from you today that you will act immediately to directly support these workers, and you will also act immediately to legislate. Deputy Taoiseach, please. I thank the Deputy for raising the issue and the question in relation to the Debenhams workers. And my response yesterday wasn't lacklustre and was not equivocal in terms of how Debenhams have treated their workers in Ireland. They have treated them very, very badly and very poorly. And the State will do everything it can to support the workers who have been made redundant by the company in the manner that you have described. Secondly, it has been accepted, and the Programme for Government outlines the necessity to review legislation, particularly in terms of the utilisation by companies to lay workers off, but by the trading side of the company becoming insolvent and separating out the assets, and they're not being available to facilitate the payment of redundancies to workers. And there's a commitment to the Programme for Government to review the company's acts and the legislation with a view to closing off those vehicles or those mechanisms by which companies can treat workers so shabbily and so badly. And thirdly, you know, governments arbitrarily cannot intervene in liquidation situations as easily as you have suggested. But that said, Debenhams should do the right thing by their workers and should pay the agreed redundancy levels that have been agreed in previous engagements. And there are obligations in relation to the company in terms of its workers. We will do everything we possibly can, obviously within the law, to support the workers and to give every particular resource we can to them to enable them to secure their rights and entitlements, but also future employment and future supports that they may require to enable them to deal with what has been a very, very difficult and traumatic situation for them as workers, and they've been treated very poorly in relation to it. The Government is committed to looking at that legislation and changing it. You see, Taoiseach, here is the problem. The state and the government has not intervened in the appropriate way to protect these workers. And I would remind you that since 2015, you have been saying that there has to be a review and a change to the legislation. I have a direct quote from you here. You said the state must intervene. This was in relation to clearys. The most effective intervention is legislative, and you challenged at the time for a review of the law to ensure that this type of behaviour cannot continue. Now, we're five years on, and you're still talking about reviewing legislation. That's simply not good enough. You may be new to the office of Taoiseach, but you are not new to government. In fact, you supported the last administration for four long and very difficult years in which they did precisely zilch nothing to ensure that this type of scandalous situation wouldn't happen again. So, this afternoon, we will publish legislation in line with the Cahill Duffy report to prevent these kinds of tactical liquidations and insolvencies. And I would ask that the government support this legislation and furthermore that we make time before we rise for the summer to ensure that the law that is long overdue to protect the Debenhams workers and all of the other vulnerable workers out there at this time of economic crisis, that we have the right laws on our books to ensure that this type of scandal cannot happen again. But that requires, Taoiseach, you to act, not to contemplate, not to push things down the pipe, not to hide behind complexity, but to lead from the front to act and to legislate. Taoiseach, please. Very disingenuous and dishonest in your presentation. I've not been in government in 2000. I wasn't in government in 2015. Haven't been in government over the last number of years. We're in government one week. That's the reality. But that's the great political untruth and mantra that you and your party have been peddling for quite some time. It's disingenuous and it does a disservice to the issue here. It doesn't help anybody to be making this kind of disingenuous political attacks on other political parties. It might suit you politically. But it doesn't actually help anybody and it doesn't help the workers. No, it's in the program for government that there's a commitment to legislate in the situation in relation to the separation of property from trading entities that is being used. And the minister and the tarnished involved will be examining that legislation. And that will happen. But it's not going to deal with the Debenhams workers' plight. Thank you. And you know that, Deputy. And I think it's important that when we're dealing with workers who've gone through a very traumatic situation, it's not to try and unrealistically raise expectations. I blame everybody else when it's the company that's fundamentally at fault here in terms of its behavior towards the worker. It hasn't been the outgoing government's fault. It's not this government's fault. But what this government can do is certainly look at the legislation in dealing with it. Thank you very much.