Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 15 Nov 2023

Vol. 1045 No. 5

Employment (Collective Redundancies and Miscellaneous Provisions) and Companies (Amendment) Bill 2023: Second Stage

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Deputy Simon Coveney)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".

I welcome the opportunity to introduce the Employment (Collective Redundancies and Miscellaneous Provisions) and Companies (Amendment) Bill 2023. Essentially, the Bill will further enhance the protections of employees in a collective redundancy in a way that does not unduly impede enterprises in the conduct of their businesses.

Before I go through the specific provisions, I wish to give some background and context to the legislation. This Bill is being introduced in response to the commitment in the programme for Government to review whether the legal provisions surrounding collective redundancies and the liquidation of companies effectively protect the rights of workers. Following extensive and constructive engagement with social partners, the Plan of Action on Collective Redundancies following Insolvency was published by my Department in June 2021. That plan, which was welcomed by the social partners, was also informed by the work of the Company Law Review Group, CLRG. The CLRG is a statutory advisory body made up of representatives from a wide range of stakeholders, including trade unions, business associations, Government bodies and auditing and banking bodies as well as academics, legal practitioners and insolvency experts, which breadth of representation makes it uniquely well positioned to advise on matters of company law. To ensure a broad range of views were considered, my Department consulted further during the development of the Bill with Restructuring and Insolvency Ireland, the insolvency practitioners' representative group, and the Department of Social Protection.

The plan of action principally addresses matters relating to employment rights and company law and seeks to supplement further the already robust legislative protections and safeguards afforded to employees involved in corporate insolvency. These developments do not arise from any one previous corporate insolvency that gave rise to collective redundancies. Rather, they form part of an ongoing legislative review and strengthening.

I am proud to report on the significant progress that has already been made in delivering on the various actions under the agreed action plan. In 2021, we published an information handbook to help workers and their representatives to navigate the existing legal frameworks. Also in 2021, improvements were made to the quality and circulation of information to workers as creditors through amendments to the Companies Act via the Companies (Rescue Process for Small and Micro Companies) Act 2021. Last year, the obligations on directors to consider the interests of creditors in the period leading up to insolvency was put on a statutory footing through the European Communities (Preventive Restructuring) Regulations 2022. Most recently, a new form used by liquidators when making reports to the Corporate Enforcement Authority was introduced on 1 October. This form includes a section on directors' regard for the interest of employees of the insolvent company and additional questions on information provided to directors who may be subject to a restriction or disqualification application.

This Bill is the next step in implementing the key outstanding employment law and company law legislative commitments that were set out in the action plan. I will outline its main provisions. It consists of 27 sections, divided into four Parts. An explanatory memorandum has been published and provides a summary of the provisions.

Part 1 provides for preliminary and general provisions setting out the Short Title of the Bill, commencement and necessary definitions.

Part 2 provides for certain amendments to the Protection of Employment Act 1977, which governs collective redundancy rules, to provide further protection to employees affected by collective redundancies. The Bill ensures that all collective redundancies are subject to a 30-day notification period before they take effect, including where the employer is insolvent. The Bill allows employees to seek redress of up to four weeks' remuneration from the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, if their employer makes them redundant before the 30-day notification period finishes. This redress is in addition to other forms of redress under the 1977 Act if an employer fails to consult employees' representatives or to provide them with information. It should be noted that, where an employer makes an employee redundant before the end of the 30-day notification period, the employee may be entitled to redress under other employment law, such as the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act 1973, as amended. This new form of redress is in addition to, not in substitution for, other redress provisions.

The Bill provides that, where a liquidator is managing the collective redundancy process in an insolvency situation, he or she must fulfil the employer's obligations. Where the liquidator fails to comply with those duties, the WRC may prosecute him or her.

Regarding proposed collective redundancies, the Bill will streamline the process for employers by allowing them to submit notifications to the Minister by electronic means.

Part 3 provides for the establishment of the employment law review group, ELRG, on a statutory basis. The ELRG will be a significantly valuable resource to the Department, allowing for an ongoing assessment of employment and redundancy law to ensure that these laws continue to be fit for purpose. The ELRG will comprise members with expertise and an interest in the development of employment and redundancy law. It will include members from the legal, accountancy and insolvency professions, worker and employer representatives, regulators and ministerial nominees.

Part 4 provides for amendments to the Companies Act 2014, which sets down a framework within which directors and companies are expected to operate. Having a strong regulatory and enforcement network that protects consumers, facilitates entrepreneurship and contributes to Ireland’s reputation as a good place to do business has been a priority for the Government. The Corporate Enforcement Authority was established in 2022 and has more autonomy and flexibility to adapt to the challenges of investigation and prosecution of increasingly complex breaches of company law. This ensures better regulation for companies and supports the enterprise base to grow and prosper. It also further strengthens Ireland’s global reputation as a top tier country in which to do business. This is underpinned by a strong company law enforcement framework.

The 2014 Act provides for separate corporate legal personality and limited liability, which is designed to encourage and foster enterprise by permitting individuals to engage in entrepreneurial activity while limiting personal exposure to financial loss in the event of commercial failure. The 2014 Act demands that, in return for the privilege of limited liability, directors act in good faith and abide by the requirements of governance, transparency and commercial probity. It is important to remember that most company directors want to do the right thing and do their best to act accordingly. In 2021, the then Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, ODCE, noted that its reviews of liquidations showed that, in over 90% of all liquidations, directors acted honestly and responsibly. However, in the event of non-compliance, remedies and accountability are important. The 2014 Act has several provisions that can be utilised by creditors to set aside transactions that have been entered by companies and that have the effect of transferring assets or giving an advantage to certain creditors. The Bill, which includes those amendments sought by ICTU and recommended by the CLRG, intends to enhance access to these remedies. It raises the bar for the permissibility of transferring assets in the period prior to insolvency and lowers the threshold required by the court to order a related company to contribute to the debts of the company being wound up.

The Bill will amend the 2014 Act to allow workers, as creditors, to have greater access to information regarding liquidations. These amendments are reflective not just of the CLRG’s March 2021 report on the provision of information to workers as creditors, but also ICTU’s minority report.

Ireland’s economy has demonstrated substantial resilience over the past number of years, reaching full employment despite international economic challenges, including persistent inflation and the associated response of rising interest rates. This resilience is set in the context of a significant increase in business costs and consumer price inflation that commenced in 2021 as the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic unwound with a rapid resumption in economic activity and amid heightened geopolitical uncertainty following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has disrupted supply chains, causing large increases in international prices for energy, food and other commodities.

The Government has provided significant support to businesses throughout the period of the rising costs of living and of doing business. The Government has been proactive in limiting the fallout from higher rates of inflation. A total of €12 billion, or 4.5% of national income, has now been provided in direct relief to absorb some of the impact and ease the burden of inflation on households and businesses. However, we are all aware of the enormous pressure business owners currently face not only in terms of their immediate liquidity but also the sustainability of their businesses.

The measures this Government has taken to support firms cannot last indefinitely and pre-existing financial weaknesses across companies are likely to be amplified. While we can foresee the possibility of a reversion to pre-pandemic levels of corporate insolvency, the Government wants to ensure the survival of those businesses that continue to have a competitive offering, and it has delivered the small companies administrative rescue as a new restructuring option for the vast majority of Ireland's companies.

While closures are a normal feature of a functioning economy and entrepreneurial culture, I appreciate that any prospect of redundancy can be very difficult for workers. This Bill will make targeted and balanced changes to the State's collective redundancy rules, which will enhance our employment legislation and ensure workers' rights are upheld. It will ensure workers, as creditors, have access to information and greater access to remedies where insolvent companies move assets beyond the reach of creditors.

This Bill is a priority for the Government. We want our legislation to be fit for purpose to deal with a possible reversion to pre-pandemic levels of corporate insolvency and to provide consistent and fair outcomes in these challenging situations. The Bill seeks to mitigate these business risks with a view to further enhancing the protection of employees that is already a feature of the existing legal landscape. I look forward to hearing the views of Members on both sides of the House and to working with them to progress this important legislation and get it right. I am proud to commend this Bill to the House.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

I very much welcome the opportunity to speak on this important legislation. Sinn Féin will be supporting it on Second Stage but intends to table amendments to strengthen it on Committee Stage. The vast majority of these amendments will be aimed at implementing the recommendations of the enterprise, trade and employment committee, as laid out in the pre-legislative scrutiny report it produced on this legislation.

This Bill aims to deliver on the Government's action plan of 2021 and provides for several measures, including amendments to employment and company law and the setting up of an employment law review group. These changes are welcome and, with regard to any criticisms I have of the legislation, I intend to be constructive. As the Minister and others will know, Sinn Féin and many other parties and Deputies have been attempting to close gaps in the law that have allowed our insolvency regime, limited status, and workers and suppliers to be abused. It was the disgraceful closure of Clerys that brought the loopholes in the legislation into full focus and the full glare of the media. Late on Friday evening, with no notice, nearly 500 people lost their jobs. I remember it very well. I was working in Liberty Hall at the time and I remember the workers coming in. I cannot stress enough how shocked they were. They were absolutely gobsmacked at the news. It had come completely out of the blue for them. I am referring to people who had given 25 or 30 years' service to one employer, people who had turned up every day and done everything expected of them. When they turned to the State for help to see what legal protections existed, the then Minister for Social Protection sent officials down to Liberty Hall. I believed there had to be more that could be done than just turning Liberty Hall into a dole office. The workers felt completely at sea. It was lucky they had a union because at least they had somewhere to go to be together. They were absolutely shellshocked. There was a lot of talk at the time about strengthening the legislation and I realise reports were produced, but the law to protect workers and their families was non-existent. It was really shocking. That was 11 years ago.

In the intervening period, Sinn Féin and others have introduced legislation to implement the recommendations in the report Expert Examination and Review of Laws on the Protection of Employee Interests When Assets are Separated from the Operating Entity, otherwise known as the Duffy Cahill report. In the intervening period, this legislation from the Opposition benches moved through the Dáil and Seanad. Moves by successive governments have been slower. This resulted in the tactical liquidation affecting the Debenhams workers. Again, the law was exploited and circumvented, and the State, workers, suppliers and whole communities suffered as a direct result.

Some aspects of this Bill address long-standing issues, such as ensuring all collective redundancies would be subject to a 30-day notification period before they take effect, including where the employer is insolvent; improving the quality and circulation of information to workers, as creditors, in a liquidation; and establishing the employment law review group on a statutory footing, which I very much welcome. The group is very important and this is a very welcome change. The changes are all welcome. I am thankful for the extensive and constructive engagement of the social partners, business stakeholders and trade unions on this Bill. Indeed, it is important to highlight the work of the Company Law Review Group on this matter. However, it is disappointing the enterprise, trade and employment committee, as an important stakeholder, had many of its suggestions, which were raised in its pre-legislative scrutiny report on this legislation, ignored. I will return to this in due course.

The main aim of this legislation is the protection of employees in a collective redundancy, and it is primarily focused on improving awareness and increasing transparency for the employees of insolvent employers. The Bill would ensure all collective redundancies are subject to a 30-day notification period before they take effect, including where the employer is insolvent. Where the employer makes the workers redundant before the 30-day notification period finishes, those workers can seek redress from the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. This is all very welcome but the WRC needs to be adequately resourced to ensure people are not left waiting. Very often, the wait between getting the news and finding somewhere to vindicate what limited rights you have is the issue. There is a long waiting period to get into the WRC, and that needs to be addressed.

The Bill also provides that, where a liquidator is managing the collective redundancy process in an insolvency situation, that liquidator has similar obligations. Where it fails to comply with those duties, the WRC may prosecute. These are very important and welcome changes but, again, the WRC has to be correctly and adequately resourced.

The facility to allow for the notification of the Minister of collective redundancies by electronic means is also an important and modernising development. It is one in respect of which we scratch our heads and are surprised it cannot happen already. It is welcome that it will be possible once the Bill passes.

One of the most important aspects of this legislation is the establishment of the employment law review group on a statutory footing. I have no doubt the group will be a significant and valuable resource in allowing for an ongoing assessment of employment and redundancy law to ensure it is fit for purpose. I hope it begins work immediately with a view to strengthening the Unfair Dismissals Act. With the victory of and vindication for the Murphy 4, it is clear the Unfair Dismissals Act is not dissuasive enough in deterring employers from unfairly dismissing workers. We saw this recently when Wix dismissed an employee for criticising the actions of the Israeli state in Palestine.

One of the most important aspects of this legislation is that it amends the Companies Act 2014, raises the bar for the permissibility of transferring assets in the period prior to insolvency, and lowers the threshold required by the court to order a related company to contribute to the debts of the company being wound up. In all the tactical liquidations we have seen over the past decade or so, assets have been transferred prior to the winding up of the company. Assets that are transferred before liquidation with fraudulent effect can now be recovered.

Furthermore, the Bill would amend the 2014 Act to allow workers, as creditors, to have greater access to information regarding liquidation. Given the cumulative economic impacts of Covid-19, Brexit and the invasion of Ukraine on the liquidity of companies, it is reasonable to anticipate an increase in winding-up petitions. Indeed, insolvencies were up 38% across the first three quarters of the year, from 373 in 2022 to 514 in 2023.

From our perspective, however, the Bill is not without issues. The Bill indicates that the courts will be given a fair amount of discretion to bring forward a result which is fair and gives creditors the opportunity to prove why a related company should contribute to the debts of the company being wound up. However, our biggest criticism of the Bill is that there is no change to the principle of equality of creditors of equal standing. In the standing of creditors, workers' wages and statutory redundancy are secured but their collective redundancy agreements are unsecured.

In many ways what is proposed with the Bill will not address the anomaly where collective redundancy agreements are not honoured on the winding-up of the company. In reaching an agreement with any employer, there is give and take. As I said in the House during discussions on the Debenhams workers, there is always give and take. To get an enhanced redundancy written into a collective agreement, you can bet there was give on the part of the workers and they had to give some concessions to secure that because that is what every agreement between workers and employers is. It is effectively a coming together and it is always some form of compromise. In Debenhams, where there was a negotiated collective redundancy agreement, there would have been an onus on the workers to adhere to what whatever was in that agreement. While they may not like all of it, there is a quid pro quo in that. They get the enhanced redundancy and have that written into a collective agreement. After having a ballot on it, that becomes their collective agreement at work. However, when they go looking for it, it does not have any statutory footing. This legislation will not put it onto a firmer or statutory footing, which is an opportunity lost. If workers were given preferential creditor status, that would achieve the aim and it would give some standing to the collective agreements. This was a recommendation of the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment following the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. It is also what Sinn Féin has been proposing since 2017.

Various other recommendations of the enterprise committee have not been included in the legislation. First, the directors or other persons in control of the company should be held responsible for any contravention under the Protection of Employment Act 1977 and liable for criminal responsibility. Second, apprentices, trainees and temporary workers should be protected under this legislation. Third, where a consultation period has commenced, it must not be interrupted by the appointment of a liquidator or receiver. Finally, a trade union of which employees are members should be notified when a petition for the winding-up of a company is being made to the High Court. These criticisms are made in a spirit of co-operation, in an attempt to be constructive, and to signal the types of amendments we will table on Committee Stage.

Legislation is all very well and we can legislate away here as much as we like. However, the best way for any worker to vindicate their rights at work is to join their trade union, to become active in that trade union and to ensure their voice is heard at the level of their workplace. In that regard, we need to move quickly to enact legislation on collective bargaining. It is not the job of me, the Minister or anyone else in here to organise workers; that is the job of trade unions. However, as legislators we can create the conditions for workers to get organised, to support them in getting organised and work to support the trade union movement. We can do more in that regard.

As I said at the outset, Sinn Féin will support the Bill on Second Stage, but we intend to introduce amendments to strengthen it on Committee Stage and I look forward to working with the Minister on that.

Deputy Martin Kenny

We will be supporting this legislation with the issue of collective bargaining at its core. In many instances, companies have just wound up overnight with large numbers of people let go. We think of Debenhams, TalkTalk, Clerys and numerous others over the decades where similar things have happened. These people are left with very little hope and nowhere to turn. The only chance they have is through the trade unions of which they may be members. In many cases they will not be because many of these companies have a very jaundiced view about their employees joining trade unions, which has also been an issue. It is to be welcomed that this legislation goes some way towards dealing with this and is certainly an advance on where we have been up to now.

The measures of ensuring all collective redundancies are subject to the 30-day notification period before they take effect represents significant progress. There are a number of other issues. The employment law review group is also very positive step. The overall policy of the scheme to enhance the protection for employees in collective redundancies is very welcome. However, in many cases these involve quite large companies and corporations which simply overnight walk away and have done it in a planned way. They have planned it in secret and to the detriment of employees. While we can try to legislate for it, we really need to ensure as much as possible that people have the power of being part of a trade union. That is the biggest power they can possibly have.

While many of them may be corporations and companies, one of the big issues we have is that when people are in employment, even in what were traditionally considered to be permanent long-term jobs, they are no longer regarded that way. I regularly speak to people who tell me they are in a job which they thought was a pretty good one. I was recently speaking to someone who worked in a bank. When they went looking for a mortgage, they discovered their job in the bank was not considered to be the long-term permanent job it would have been in the past. There is a kind of a funny twist in it that everything now is in short-term contracts and does not have the permanent long-term stability that once was there.

Someone in Fórsa talked to me today about its members who work as car testers. There are 130 full-time workers and another 40 to 50 working part time on short-term contracts which range from a year to two years. Some of them have been there for four or five years on these kinds of rolling contracts. Representatives of the Road Safety Authority told the committee they felt they needed 170 full-time people but it does not employ 170 full-time people. Many of the others do not take up the positions because they are not long term and are not sustainable. They cannot plan their lives around a two-year contract. That is the difficulty we have and this is a State agency.

We need to ensure employment, particularly in long-term professions like this, can be sustainable for people so that they can plan their lives around it and know where their future is. If they cannot do that, they will have difficulty in establishing themselves in their community or society, especially if they want to buy a home. People often leave Ireland not because they cannot get employment here but because they cannot establish the kind of long-term sustainable life that they want to have and they need to go abroad to do that.

I recently spoke to a qualified veterinary surgeon who was trying to buy a house but could not get a mortgage. He was offered a position in France and once he was there for six months, he would be offered a mortgage immediately. While he would be earning less money than here, he could plan his life around it which people cannot do in this country. One of the main reasons they cannot do it here is because employment is not considered as long-term and stable in the way it used to be. That has changed. We need to recognise that change is not positive and is led by the corporate mindset of the gig economy. It is not good for our society and does not help in trying to keep people in the country and maintaining the skills we need here. In the long term, it is not good for the communities we want to try to build and enhance.

This legislation has considerable merit and does some good stuff. It needs to be strengthened in places and Deputy O'Reilly has pointed out some of the amendments that need to be made. I hope the Minister will accept those amendments, understanding that they are brought in a constructive way to try to make this legislation better to deliver for everyone across our society. This is not just for the workers but also for the employers. They want to employ people and want to keep them working in their community as part of their community. They want them to be part of their business to build and develop their business. If they do not give them good long-term jobs which are sustainable and properly paid with good conditions, they will not keep those people because they will not be able to stay. We have work to do in this area.

Some companies can go through difficult times, and there may be a bit of turbulence with regard to the economy at the moment, particularly with the various conflicts, interest rates and various other difficulties that can cause problems for companies. Brexit has been the big one with which we have all had to deal. At the same time, our economy is doing reasonably well. There are two sets to that economy: the multinational corporation set, which is doing really well, and the domestic economy, which is doing reasonably well but needs more support and more help. One key way to support that economy to grow, to develop and to be sustainable long-term is to ensure the people who work in it have secure, long-term employment which they can count on and around which they can build and plan their lives. This legislation is welcome in that it goes some distance to doing that.

I commend the work that has been done on this. It is to be hoped the amendments which have been put forward can be accepted by the Government and that we can improve the Bill for the future.

Deputy Ged Nash

Today is a bit of an emotional day for me. The Minister will recall the work done by the Government in which I served to start to address these issues, issues that became all too apparent to us in light of the Clerys debacle. I will never forget two phone calls I received that afternoon, the first from Gerry Light, the then deputy general secretary of Mandate trade union, soon followed by another call from my good friend John King of SIPTU. As the then Minister of State with responsibility for business and employment, but principally as a human being, I was absolutely incredulous at what I heard. Almost 500 staff, some directly employed but most linked to concession holders at the iconic Clerys store on the main street of our capital city, had been given minutes to leave their work premises. Their jobs were gone, with no calls from the person who now owned the storied building, nothing from the operating company, the Clerys workers' legal employer, an operation that, as the Minister will recall, was hived off from the structure that owned the building and that was then liquidated in a corporate power play in the early hours of that morning, on a day that will live on in infamy in terms of Irish society and Irish business. Deirdre Foley, the owner of the company called Natrium, rode off into the sunset with a building worth tens of millions in her back pocket. Workers, people such as Susie Gaynor McGowan and many others I got to know during that period, were left on the side of O'Connell Street with nothing - no consultation, no humanity, absolutely nothing. They were victims of a liquidation with no redundancy, only basic statutory redundancy from the State, and few rights for individual or collective redress.

The events of that infamous, notorious day turned the stomachs of even the most hard-nosed of businesspeople. The work of SIPTU, officials such as Ethel Buckley and Teresa Hannick and workers such as Susie Gaynor McGowan, Gerry Markey, John Finn, John Crowe and others, people who had never before seen themselves as activists, swung into action and campaigned with me for change. The report I brought to Cabinet in early 2015, in direct response to the Clerys debacle, and our commission and publication of the Duffy-Cahill review in mid-2016 were important starting points in the process that is concluding here today. The resolve of the Irish people said this should not happen again.

Happen again it did, however. It happened to the Debenhams workers. It has been more than eight years since Clerys and more than seven years since the publication of the Duffy-Cahill report, which recommended many of the kinds of changes to employment and collective redundancy law and the greater use of aspects of company law to better vindicate the rights of and deliver results for workers as employees and in terms of their status as creditors in an insolvency. The fact that workers and we as legislators have had to wait so long for these changes to the law, many of them first proposed by me in 2015 and 2016, is an indictment of the system.

In any event, this legislation and these essential reforms are a testament, a legacy and a monument to the determination and commitment of the Clerys workers and the Justice for Clerys campaign and the Debenhams workers and their trade unions. The Labour Party welcomes this legislation not exclusively for the necessary changes it heralds in respect of the rights of workers in insolvencies and in other circumstances where responsible people are appointed by the courts to manage and restructure the affairs of corporate entities, but also in respect of modernisation of some features of the collective redundancies legislation that are in dire need of modernisation and reform.

We also very much welcome the sections of the legislation that will see the establishment of the employment law review group, based on a similar model under which the Company Law Review Group, CLRG, operates and functions. I have been making the case for several years for the creation of such a mechanism. Such is the pace of change and transformation driven by technology, AI and other factors that the world of work is changing at a rate of knots. The traditional employment model is frayed, and jobs and professions we have taken for granted may be headed for obsolescence. A decent society, social solidarity and a productive, dynamic and open but regulated enterprise economy depend on decent work. That means a commitment to collective bargaining, to promoting trade unions and their function in society and to a system that has the agility to respond to bring in legislative changes to protect workers and working people as the nature of work continues to evolve at a rapid pace. All too often, as we know, ways have been found by bad-faith actors to exploit perhaps unintended lacunae in our suite of employment legislation and to take advantage of workers. The system, if we can call it that, is consistently in catch-up mode, as is the nature of such things.

The employment law review group, ELRG, is one way in which we as a country will have a new capacity to respond quickly to new challenges and sometimes unwelcome new labour market trends. This Bill is a major win for working people. When Clerys staff were thrown out of their jobs, when the Debenhams workers were thrown out of their jobs, the law bestowed few rights on them. The laws we have coldly viewed these workers as collateral damage, in that: "It is an insolvency. Companies cannot trade recklessly. If you are insolvent, the company has no money to pay enhanced redundancies, so off to the State you go to collect your two weeks' statutory redundancy." In the case of Clerys, a rich businesswoman ran off with a plump asset while the State picked up the tab for redundancies and jobseekers' payments. That is a fact. I will never be dissuaded from the fact that a fraud was perpetrated on those workers. That is a fact, in my view.

I recall, as the then Minister of State, trying to get in contact with the liquidator. He finally agreed to meet me. My experience was that he was uncomfortable meeting me. Meeting a Minister in the context of an insolvency was not something he had ever done before. I wanted engagement with workers and unions. I wanted him to share information with SIPTU on the process and any assets of the company. I think he thought I was from another planet. He did not have to do so, and why should he? That seemed to be the demeanour he adopted. I recall seeking a meeting with Deirdre Foley, the new owner of the property, under the company name Natrium, before I concluded a report I took to Cabinet in early July of 2015, three weeks after the shock closure. Every excuse under the sun was given not to meet me, such as, "Why would I meet you? I am not the employer. What do I have to do with this? If I meet you, I will meet you only on the condition that all we can discuss is what I will do with the new building I own. If I agree to meet you, it will be at my business address, not the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment." Imagine saying that to a Minister of State duly elected and appointed by the Dáil. As it happened, the company's business address was changed a few days previously to the address of its solicitors, A&L Goodbody. That is where she wanted to meet me, a Minister of State appointed by the Dáil concerned about the plight of workers. This was arrogance taken to a breathtaking level.

When we looked at trying to go after the related assets of connected companies, a wall came down. We did this to see if a better package could be put together for enhanced redundancies for the Clerys workers and, indeed, to benefit the State as well. In my view, the State, whether it was the Revenue Commissioners or the Department of Social Protection, should have gone after the connected assets of those related companies to which I referred under section 599 of the Companies Act. It is to my dismay to this day that neither the Revenue Commissioners nor the Department of Social Protection took a case to test section 599. This is what happens when company law takes primacy over the rights and dignity of workers. This is what happens when there is not even a balance of rights, and a balance of rights is all we are looking for. The Clerys and Debenhams debacles expose much of what was wrong and still is wrong around the intersection of company law and employment law. Much of what we wanted, much of what we have been campaigning for and advocating for, is included in this Bill, and that is to the Minister's credit.

Sections 4 to 11 make some very important changes. When the Bill is enacted, a responsible person - in the case of Clerys or Debenhams it would have been the provisional liquidator and subsequently the liquidator - will be required to consult workers and their representatives where collective redundancies are being contemplated. The responsible person will have to provide the trade unions with all relevant information with regard to the proposed redundancies. This is the approach I asked the liquidators of Clerys operating company to take, but they did not do so because they did not have to.

The liquidator will also be obliged to notify the Minister of the contemplation of a collective redundancy. In the normal way, the first dismissal cannot take effect at least until the expiry of those 30 days. The liquidator will have to provide statements of claim to employees and their representatives within a given timeframe. This was a key recommendation of the Duffy-Cahill review, as was what I am about to say next. There will now be no exemption from the 30-day rule. If one is at risk of losing one's job in a redundancy situation, there will be no exception from the 30-day requirement, regardless of whether the company is still trading or going through insolvency. This is absolutely critical. I put it to the Minister that a great deal turns on this. It is troubling that during the consultation process, and indeed since we started this process, IBEC has been opposing this. All collective redundancies will now be covered by the 30-day notification and consultation period, as per this Bill. Crucially, this, along with other aspects of the legislation, prevents what the Duffy-Cahill review described as "the peremptory manner" of the dismissal of the Clerys workers and the similar experience of the Debenhams workers subsequently.

I plan to bring forward amendments on Committee Stage. They relate, for example, to the need, in the view of the Labour Party, to align parts of section 12 more closely with the intention of the Duffy-Cahill report, which was to treat a dismissal in contravention of the current section 14 of the Protection of Employment Act as a legal nullity.

In addition, the maximum compensation to an aggrieved employee should be increased beyond four weeks' pay. In the words of the Duffy-Cahill report, the current four-week provision is not believed to be "an effective remedy having deterrent effect."

On section 7, we need to look again at the level of fines which would be imposed on a responsible person who fails to carry out their legal obligation to notify and consult.

Section 8 provides a welcome route to redress for individual workers to the WRC. A worker will now be able to make a complaint as an individual to the WRC where he or she is dismissed before the expiry of the 30 days, which is a right that does not exist at the moment. Arguably, the compensation level should be set at the level awarded arising from an unfair dismissal. That would be a real deterrent.

I want to make a few comments on section 599 of the Companies Act and its untapped potential. When I was Minister of State with responsibility for business and employment in 2015, in response to the scandalous sale and liquidation of Clerys I wrote a report to the then Government on that affair in a matter of weeks on the need for a governmental and legislative response. I should point out that it is not only direct employees who lose out when a trading company which is an employer is split from an asset-holding company and then wound up, as happened in Clerys. As the Minister may recall, many small franchise holders and other small enterprises were badly affected by this manoeuvre. My report was written with the expert assistance of Brian Murray SC, who is now a Supreme Court judge, and Finbarr O'Malley. The report included an analysis of what is now section 599. The section was introduced into Irish law in 1990 to provide a means by which the assets of the company being wound up could be increased by applying to the court for an order directing that a separate but related company should contribute to its debts. Potentially, this could bring about a quite dramatic piercing of the corporate veil that otherwise gives each company in a group a separate legal identity.

It seems that New Zealand is the only other jurisdiction in the common law world with a comparable statutory provision. I wrote in 2015, and it seems to be still true today, that there were no reported court judgments which considered in detail the proper application of this section. This may well be an indication of how rarely, if ever, it has been invoked. I go back to what I said earlier on: I believe it should have been the case at the time that the Revenue Commissioners or the Department of Social Protection, as preferred creditors, should have tested section 599 and sought some recompense for the State with regard to, for example, statutory redundancy payments. That did not happen. In any event, the 1990 provision is now re-enacted as section 599 of the Companies Act 2014. Under this section, a court, in considering whether to make a contribution order, must determine whether it is just and equitable to do so. In so deciding, the court must have regard to the extent to which the related company took part in the management of the company being wound up, the conduct of the related company towards the creditors of the company being wound up, and the effect which the order would be likely to have on the creditors of the related company.

As I have noted, we are still awaiting an authoritative Irish judgment on the circumstances in which a contribution will be made as between related companies. However, we know the legislative policy behind this provision. We know that the original New Zealand provision had its origins in a recommendation of the 1973 MacArthur committee responding to two recent cases in that jurisdiction, where two well-known companies had simply abandoned their subsidiaries. New Zealand court judgments have discussed a number of relevant factors, including whether directors of the subsidiary acted in that capacity or rather as employees of the parent company; whether they distinguished between the best interests of the subsidiary and the parent company; whether the subsidiary had the financial capacity to continue to trade separately; whether the parent company's conduct had indicated that it stood behind the subsidiary; the interests of shareholders versus those of creditors; the intermingled nature of the business; whether the actions of the parent company led directly to the liquidation of the subsidiary; and the group’s conduct towards its creditors.

It is worth noting that in its December 2021 report, the CLRG commented that, as originally drafted back in 1990, our provision was in fact identical to the New Zealand legislation. However, the CLRG reported that "some perceived the contribution order to be anti-risk taking and anti-business and pointed out that "In this context, a number of changes were made to moderate the proposed provision". In Ireland but not in New Zealand, therefore, the court must be satisfied that the circumstances which gave rise to the liquidation were attributable to acts of the related company. In New Zealand, there is no such prerequisite to the making of an order. Second, an express provision in the New Zealand legislation permits the court to have regard to any other factor it considers fit in exercising its discretion. This was not included in the Irish legislation, going back to 1990 originally, seemingly on the basis that it gave too broad a discretion to the court.

Section 24 of the Bill we are examining today provides for amendments to section 599. First, it is proposed to delete subsection (5), under which an order cannot be made unless the circumstances that gave rise to the winding up are attributable to acts or omissions of the related company. Second, the court will instead be able to have regard to the extent to which the circumstances that gave rise to the winding up are attributable to the acts or omissions of the related company and “any other factor it considers fit in exercising its discretion to make a contribution order”. That is manifestly a good thing. In short, these amendments bring us back, 33 years later, to what should have been our original intention, which is what is set out in the original New Zealand legislation. All that is needed now is a creditor or liquidator who will go to court and seek to have the law applied as a less restrictive and, I hope, more accessible remedy.

That amendment of section 599 is very significant given our experiences in recent years, looking especially at the Clerys case and the questions it threw up. The Labour Party is happy to support this legislation. This is a good day and the Minister can be proud of the fact that he is bringing this legislation to the Dáil after many years of commitments to change the law, to examine properly the intersection between company law and employment law, to change that and to balance those rights differently to ensure, especially, that workers who are caught up in insolvencies are treated much more fairly and more equitably than the workers in Clerys and, subsequently, in Debenhams. We are happy to support this legislation. We look forward to amending it on Committee Stage and to engaging in more detail on the provisions of the Bill. I believe the Minister can be proud of bringing this legislation, which we broadly support, to the House.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Employment (Collective Redundancies and Miscellaneous Provisions) and Companies (Amendment) Bill 2023. The debate is good and positive. I have been following it in my office and in committee rooms throughout the afternoon. I fully support the Bill and Fianna Fáil in government fully supports it. It will further enhance the protection of employees in a collective redundancy scenario. This Bill delivers on a promise in the programme for Government and serves to implement the remaining commitments in the plan of action with regard to collective redundancies following insolvency.

This Bill also amends the Protection of Employment Act 1977, which governs collective redundancy rules. These amendments will enhance transparency for employees of employers who become insolvent, and will expand the avenues of redress available to employees in a collective redundancy scenario.

The last element of great merit in this Bill is that fact that it amends the Companies Act 2014 and improves the quality and the amount of information circulated to workers when they are creditors. I recently saw in my constituency that the Iceland store in Shannon town centre closed its doors with very short notice. A text message went out to all employees at 5 p.m. saying they needed to pack their bags, empty their lockers, head home at 5.30 p.m. and that was the end of that. Therefore, we need to look at how workers are treated and what information circulates thereafter. Elected representatives will gladly at any time go to meet employees who have been made redundant but that should not be the first port of call. There should be plenty of high-quality information and plenty of supports available to workers. There is a big disparity, of course, between workers who are unionised and those who are not. I hope that last element of the Bill, which seeks to amend the Companies Act 2014, will improve that chasm of information. It is information people desperately need when they face a collective redundancy.

Deputy Martin Browne

The need for collective bargaining has never been greater given the various factors that are contributing to the rise of insolvencies. We have seen the challenges that have been posed by Brexit and the pandemic. The hike in energy costs as part of overall inflation, due in part to the war in Ukraine, has brought pressure to bear on companies across the country and, by extension, workers.

Earlier this year, the European Central Bank, ECB, outlined how corporate profiteering had contributed more to inflation than wages, a trend that the Central Bank of Ireland also said was mirrored here in Ireland. There are cases where legislation for collective bargaining to strengthen the hand of workers to retain corporate profiteering is only reinforced, but it is in this area that this Bill is found to be wanting as creditor workers' wages and statutory redundancy are secured. This Bill fails to address the situation that continues to exist whereby collective redundancy agreements are not honoured on the winding up of a company. To give the impression that the measures taken in this Bill in any way address the need to change the principle of equality of creditors of equal standing would be insincere. This needs addressing. While efforts to do just that have been made in the Oireachtas, such efforts have been delayed by the Government, which needs to clearly outline the reasons for the continued delay. Although I appreciate the removal of the exemption whereby collective redundancies arising from the winding up of a company or bankruptcy are exempt from this criminal liability, it falls short of including a provision that would see directors or other persons in control of a company being held responsible for any possible contravention.

During pre-legislative scrutiny, the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment noted that while the Bill provides for the notification of employees when a petition for the winding up of a company is being made to the High Court, it does not include an obligation to inform the trade union of which the employees are members. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has recommended that this be addressed and I echo that call. Again, the Minister's response to this point would be appreciated. If our ambition is to create an environment in which corporate profiteering or poor practice is to be dealt with fully in the interests of the worker, the business environment and the cost of living are factors that need addressing. Against this background, Sinn Féin will be bringing forward amendments to address these shortcomings.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

I thank the Minister for bringing forward this legislation, which is intended to provide workers with better protection over the course of the collective redundancy process in cases that involve insolvency. There appears to be a caveat in the language of the official briefing, which states that the protections for employees do "not unduly impede enterprises in the conduct of their business". I ask the Minister to expand on that when he is wrapping up. I am not quite sure where the balance will lie there.

While any loss of jobs in any industry is not ideal, it is a reality. We have seen it manifest itself with lay-offs at companies such as Meta, Twitter, Microsoft and Google. Job losses may not be due to poor business performance. Decisions made on a global scale can be locally devastating in this jurisdiction, particularly in the sector I have mentioned which is extraordinarily exposed. At the same time, I acknowledge we have some very good jobs in that sector. In fact, the Financial Services Union, FSU, stated earlier this year that it has had an uptake in representation. The FSU was involved in the representation of just 40 companies in 2018, with this number more than tripling to over 140 by the first half of this year. This is a clear recognition by workers of the volatility of their employment in those industries.

I appreciate that this Bill is, in the main, seeking to implement aspects of employment law that arise in the post-insolvency phase for a company in the context of a collective redundancy. That brings me to the Debenhams case. Following the announcement by Debenhams Retail (Ireland) Limited that it was closing all stores in Ireland with the loss of nearly 1,000 jobs, it transpired that the company would not be paying staff any redundancy payments and they would have to depend on the State for their statutory redundancy entitlements. Most of us remember the overnight announcement and the intention to clear the stock. There were long, protracted protests. Looking back, the staff were very badly treated during those protests. I found this to be nothing short of an abandonment of its corporate responsibility on the part of Debenhams, not to mention an abandonment of decency and a complete lack of respect for the workers who gave the company the opportunity to operate here. This case is a bit of a legacy, along with other examples which are similar to it. Some of the long-serving Debenhams workers, who came to the company by virtue of being employed by Roches Stores prior to that, were there for a very long time and had a long service history. I found the fact that Debenhams behaved in this way deplorable, as did most people in this House. Obviously, there is also the case of Clerys. It is hard to believe it goes back the number of years it does. Not only was there a loss of jobs, but it left a very big hole in the main street in our capital city that still has not really recovered.

Separately, and more recently, the workers at Iceland supermarket were forced to dip into overdrafts and take out personal loans to cover their costs and outgoings following a sudden decision that had an immediate impact. In that case, workers found themselves in the High Court following the Metron takeover of the chain and they were arguing their own case. One worker asked the court to make an order compelling the company, which had cash reserves of €300,000, to settle outstanding wage issues and dismissals. In reply, the judge said that while he had great sympathy for the workers due to the uncertainty they were facing, he did not have the jurisdiction to make the order they sought. While I accept that the judge was correct, it was the ordinary worker who was on the hook here. I see the potential to mitigate future situations such as the one in Iceland, and indeed Debenhams, as a result of the amendment that is being made to the Companies Act. It promises to improve the quality of circulation of information to workers as creditors, for example by ensuring they have access within a reasonable period of time to the company statement of affairs which is filed in the courts. The Bill we are debating today will, I hope, set standards far higher than they have been to date. That is very positive and rebalances power.

There are some points I would like the Minister to clarify regarding some of the provisions contained in the Bill.

Where a liquidator or similar appointee is managing the collective redundancy process in an insolvency situation and fails to comply with their duties under the Act, the WRC may prosecute them with a maximum fine on conviction of €5,000. If the WRC makes such a ruling, presumably that would debar that same actor from future involvements in a similar process because if one does not do that, it is difficult to see how it would not repeat itself if a sanction has been taken. The Bill ensures that collective redundances will be subject to the 30-day notification period before they take effect, including where the employer is insolvent. This removes the exemption from notification requirements in respect of collective redundancies caused by the employer's insolvency. This is a really positive inclusion and I acknowledge that.

The Bill provides for the establishment of a statutory employment law review group, which will advise the Minister on all aspects of employment law. Will the Minister tell us if he has started to assemble that group or what his thoughts are on the make-up of that group, and if his officials have identified the categories of people, rather than individuals, who might be appointed? For the employment law review group to be credible and effective in its work, it would have to include employee representatives. I refer to my opening remarks about not unduly impeding on enterprises in the conduct of their businesses. There has to be a balance. I presume there will be but I would like it to be confirmed.

The review group cannot ever find itself compromised or give a perception that its advice has been lobbied for. It is important that consideration be given to that and when the Minister is notified. My view is that anyone appointed by the Minister should file declarations of interest and a manual return of the same, whether it is nil or not, so that we have transparency for that particular aspect. That is important. Those are the workings rather than the terms of the legislation.

I welcome this Bill. It is a real improvement. It will certainly help in situations like we have seen with some of the examples such as Debenhams, Iceland and Clerys. That has to be welcomed.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on this Bill. I am not a member of the Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, so I would not be as close as some other Members to the gestation process the Bill went through. I think it has been shown that the pre-legislative scrutiny process produces better and more robust legislation. I am certainly much wiser from having sat in and listened to the debate so far. It is a great credit to the process and the Minister's partner process. We are talking about going from the programme for Government, through that engagement with social partners, the Company Law Review Group and Restructuring and Insolvency Ireland. That is producing legislation which, in the words of Deputy Ged Nash, is a major win for working people. It is unusual for any Bill to garner that kind of praise from a Member of the Opposition.

I welcome the provisions in this Bill. I note that, in the Minister's speech, he said they do not arise from any one previous corporate insolvency, but many Deputies in the House have gone back to Clerys. In my constituency, Debenhams is a clear example. We spoke about TalkTalk. The situation in Iceland also affected my constituency. It might not be directly associated but I think back to the situation in Waterford Crystal. Some workers from it who were made redundant are still seeking what they believe is their entitlement to pension rights from a round of redundancies in the 1980s. I welcome the provisions.

I want to take a zoomed-out approach and then make a contribution on a specific aspect of it. We have to recognise that our economy is in a state of transition, at a pace I do not think we have seen before. That is driven by a number of factors. People have mentioned things like Brexit but there is the overarching challenge with digitisation and automation and the challenge that AI poses to many traditional jobs. There is also the challenge with trying to decarbonise our economy in a short period. There is no doubt that the workforce of today will look very different from the workforce a decade from now. There is a challenge for us to protect employees as we undergo that transition. On one hand, we have a choice to make about digitisation, automation and AI, regarding who will derive the benefit from that. We know there is an increasing move towards a return on capital versus a return on labour. If we allow all that benefit to accrue to people who already have wealth, then wealth will continue to concentrate with that select group, particularly if we allow an undermining of workers' rights through an "Uberisation" of jobs in parts of the economy or if we allow people's jobs to be made obsolete. We need to protect them.

We have to understand that workers are not widgets. These are the words of Esther Lynch. They are not just plug and play units in our economy. They are people in a society. We have to protect them as our economy is undergoing what will be a radical change over the next number of years. With that in mind, I want to focus on the specific aspects to do with the functions of the employment law review group. There are a number of functions, going from (a) to (g), on which the Minister, Deputy Coveney, may want to engage with his colleague, the Minister, Deputy Harris. It is not enough to just offer protection to workers on their way out the door. We also have to look to the future of workers who are affected by collective redundancies. Is there a role or function in this Bill where we can look at the upskilling and retraining of people and communities who are negatively affected by this transition in our economy, be that transition in digitalisation or, as I said, a move to the green economy?

We do not want a skills agenda that is driven solely by capital, but we have to look at the construction of human capital. We have to give people their own pathway to improve their skills and have one eye to the fact that the jobs of today may not necessarily be the jobs of tomorrow. We have to give workers that flexibility in times of redundancy while at the same time encouraging them to engage in lifelong learning and upskilling while working. It is important to have those supports in place.

The Minister said some of the people who would be involved in the review group would be members of legal accountancy and insolvency professions, workers, and employer representatives. It would be useful to have somebody with an education background and a perspective on lifelong education, not just on protecting workers as they go out the door but who will also have an eye to opening the next door that workers can go through as they move, hopefully, from one employment to another.

I will not delay the Minister much further. I welcome the provisions of the Bill and the fact that it gives increased protection, particularly that 30-day window, to workers. We have seen the likes of Debenhams and Iceland where workers have not been afforded that. I also welcome that the Bill states, "Where an employer or a responsible person proposes to create collective redundancies, he or she shall, with a view to reaching an agreement, initiate consultations with employees’ representatives." That has been lacking. People have received word late in the day and found themselves in situations where they felt they needed to lock themselves in with produce to mitigate against the transfer of those items and the tactical liquidation that Deputy O'Reilly referred to.

There is great progress in this Bill. I am happy to see it move from the programme for Government, through all those Stages and to the point where I think we have robust legislation. I will engage with the Minister about the potential for amendments along the lines that I raised.

I am very happy to be able to endorse the Bill on this Stage.

Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú

We welcome this necessary legislation. There will be a need to strengthen some of the weaknesses on Committee Stage, and I hope there will be some element of cross-party co-operation in that regard.

In fairness to him, Deputy Ó Cathasaigh spoke about changing workforces and the changing nature of how things are. There is an awful lot of hope in this but we also have a large number of concerns about what will happen from the point of view of AI. We also have particular issues regarding to zero-hour contracts. We constantly push that people would have an absolute right to union representation, but we know at times that it can be very difficult to represent those workers on the absolute bottom rung of the ladder in private industry. They do not necessarily have the full set of protections.

This is not the first time I have spoken about issues relating to the film industry. The Taoiseach and others have spoken about support for a stakeholders' forum. This needs to be put in place to deal with the very specific problem relating to blackballing and other issues. It is an industry we all want to see flourish but the difficulty with it is that it operates like something from another time. For people to work somebody must make a phone call to them to make sure they are going to be there for every new operation put in place.

We welcome the Bill. Many people have raised the tactical liquidations that happened in Debenhams, Clerys and TalkTalk. These are the companies that brought the issue of collective redundancy into the public consciousness. We know the Bill will deal with certain amendments to the Companies Act. It will ensure that collective redundancies are subject to a 30-day notification period before they take effect where the employer is insolvent. It is a means of generally improving the quality and circulation of information to workers. There is also the establishment of the employment law review group on a statutory basis.

We all know the particular issues that have arisen here and the protections that workers did not have. They were absolutely screwed over in what were utterly unfair practices that were covered by law. This is a means of closing this off. In this sense we are all very supportive of it. There are particular issues. We have a criticism of the Bill that it makes no change to the principle of equality of creditors of equal standing. The Bill is moving matters in the right direction, but we need to make sure that we give full protection to those people who find themselves in terrible circumstances, or at least have done before this.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Some sort of legislative response to the scandalous situation that faced the Debenhams workers has been a long time coming. Those workers were forced to engage in a strike for 406 days because of the absolutely despicable manner in which Debenhams laid them off. It made them all redundant and then refused to honour the collective agreement to give them two weeks' statutory redundancy plus two weeks' pay per year of service. This had been promised in a collective agreement. There had been cases before this, such as Clerys, Vita Cortex and La Senza. There has been a litany of these cases where there were collective redundancies of a large number of workers who had given loyal service to companies and generated large profits for those companies, and those workers were left absolutely high and dry. The law has allowed this to happen.

In the case of Debenhams, despite an heroic struggle the workers got nothing. Debenhams got away with it. The public were forced to step in and pay the two weeks' statutory redundancy. The Government provided a pretty miserable training fund but the workers were deprived of their two weeks' statutory redundancy plus two weeks' pay per year of service. This was a disgrace when we consider that some of the workers had worked 20, 25 or 30 years for the company.

The workers received notice of their redundancy via email, having previously been given commitments and promises by the company that there was no suggestion they were going to be made redundant and that Covid that was the reason they were being temporarily laid off. They discovered by email that all 1,000 of them were gone and were being left with absolutely nothing. I commend the workers on fighting an incredible battle for 406 days.

Much of the battle these workers fought was not only about their own situation but about their determination to make sure it would never happen again to another group of workers. There had been promises after Clerys with the Duffy Cahill report that these issues would be addressed and that other groups of workers would not be shafted the way Clerys workers, and the others before them whom I have also mentioned, had been shafted. We had many promises by the Government during the course of the Debenhams dispute, and multiple debates on motions in the House, that the issues would be addressed. This is the history and the background. As I read it, while some measures are welcome, the Bill is extremely limited and does not really do what is necessary to prevent all of this from happening again. No doubt we will scrutinise it on Committee Stage.

The critical issue of changing the order of preference for creditors to put the workers at the top is not addressed in the Bill. This is the key change that needs to happen. The idea that the workers who generate the value of a company and who generated its profits for decades could be left at the bottom of the list where they do not get anything, or that a company could walk away without honouring its collective agreement for redundancy payments, are not being addressed. All we are speaking about in the Bill, as I understand it and the Minister can correct me if I am wrong, is that it requires that there be a consultation period. There will be a 30-day consultation period and there is clarification that liquidators would have certain obligations in terms of providing information to workers and that there would be pretty limited fines if they do not do so.

The Bill does not really address the fundamental problem. If we look at the Debenhams case, there was supposedly some level of consultation but it was a joke. The workers were just told porkies. For example, they were told the large amounts of revenue that the company was continuing to generate on debenhams.ie would be available to pay for the redundancies. In fact, the company had ensured that all the money went to Debenhams UK. The company then loaded €200 million in debt onto the Irish company, essentially meaning that any remaining assets were wiped out. In what was a tactical liquidation, this was a way to sell off parts of the company, including the Danish wing. A consortium of hedge funds and banks was set up and walked away with tens of million of euro while the workers got absolutely shafted. The consortium was able to manipulate, through the various subsidiaries and wings of the company, the financial position of Debenhams Ireland to rob the Debenhams workers of their just desserts.

Those matters are not really being addressed. They should be made criminal offences. If I am reading this correctly, and I have not studied it at all in forensic detail, workers who are not given the proper consultation and information in this context can go to the WRC. It should, however, be a flipping criminal offence to do what was done to the Debenhams' workers. This is what needs to happen. I refer to the lies they were told by the company about its financial position. Serious punitive measures must be taken to deal with companies that treat workers in this way.

As already stated, the critical measure in this regard concerns putting the workers at the top of the list of creditors. This would rectify the issue of companies being able to, essentially, manipulate their financial position to rob workers of their proper redundancy entitlements. There should also be a legal requirement for collective agreements to be honoured. I refer to the sort of collective agreements the Debenhams' workers had, which led them to believe they were safe and would get their two-plus-two entitlements in the case of redundancy.

I doubt very much whether the workers have seen this legislation yet. Interestingly, and the Minister should be aware of this fact, their film has gained large audiences all over the world. The workers will be in London at the end of this week for the premiere of the film "406 Days" in that city. It is getting a huge response. I think these workers, though, will be very disappointed that this is all the Government can come up with as a legislative response to the situation they faced.

Debate adjourned.