asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will take steps to ensure that industrial concerns which are initiated or aided by State investments will be required to order their affairs in such manner as will ensure that, in the event of the financial failure of such enterprise, workers will not be left without payment of wages due.

134.

asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will arrange payment of arrears of wages due to workers in cases where the financial collapse of State-aided companies has resulted in such workers not receiving amounts due with consequent hardship to those concerned.

With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 133 and 134 together. I am aware of only one case where a State-aided company having failed financially, there was delay in paying wages due.

The Companies Act, 1963, makes provision for preferential payments in the winding-up of a company, and outstanding wages have a priority.

Where do they come in the order of priority?

Almost at the top, as far as I recollect.

Am I right in thinking that anything due to the State has to come first?

I think the Deputy may be correct in that.

In a case such as that, it is not inconceivable that the State would take anything there and nothing would be left. The Minister has not answered my question in the full sense of the word. As everybody knows, the particular company referred to in the question is the Electra company in Ballyfermot. It was the subject of considerable publicity and it does not take from it if I mention it here. I want to ask the Minister is he aware that, although letters have issued from the Taoiseach's Department and from his Department indicating that the workers have been paid the amounts due, they have not in fact been paid the amounts due? The workers concerned are still awaiting payment by the representatives of the company, or at least by the legal gentlemen now in charge of the affairs of the company. They are awaiting payment from him of money due in lieu of notice. Some of them have had from 12 to 18 months service with that company and were entitled to at least a week's notice of dismissal, which they did not get. They are entitled to payment for that. They are still waiting for what is called holiday money.

Surely this is not a matter for supplementary question? It is a protracted statement.

It is what the whole thing is about.

If the Deputy considers the matter should come before the House and the Minister, he should put down a motion. This is clearly an abuse of Question Time.

How is it an abuse of Question Time for me to ask about the manner in which my constituents have been treated?

These are not the type of matters envisaged by Standing Orders. The Deputy is making a protracted statement.

I do not wish to make a protracted statement.

The Deputy is doing it.

I want to remain within the bounds of Standing Orders. I want to exercise my right as a Deputy, however, to ask a question concerning my constituents.

I do not want to prevent the Deputy exercising his right but I want to confine him to what Standing Orders envisaged when they put Questions on the Order Paper.

I am being cribbed, cabined and confined in everything I am saying. At the same time, I am entitled to stand on my fundamental rights.

I cannot allow the Deputy to make protracted statements.

I hope the Minister does not object to answering these questions. Will you allow me ask him this, Sir? Will the Minister take steps to ensure that the legal official now dealing with this matter will, as a first priority, have the wages, which I have indicated are due to these workers, paid and paid forthwith? There must have been some money left in the kitty. They cannot have dashed to the mailboat and Collinstown with all that was there.

This does not seem to be relevant.

I am not in a position to do what the Deputy asks because my information is that wages as such, wages in respect of time worked, have been paid.

After a long delay.

This is true, for reasons which are most unusual to arise in the winding-up of a company. But they did occur in this case. This is the only case I am aware of where any such thing has happened. The outstanding claims, I understand, relate to claims for wages in lieu of notice. They do not rank, as I have said wages do, as preferential payments and, as the law stands, must await decision under the procedure for winding up.

In other words, these foreigners are being given privileges, special treatment, which native employers will not be given.

I do not know what the Deputy is talking about. The law is the Companies Act, 1963, which applies to all companies.

135.

asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he is aware that former employees of a firm (name supplied) were dismissed without payment of wages due; and if he will state the amount of State investment by way of loan or grant in this enterprise.

I am aware that on the close down of the firm mentioned, there was a delay on the payment of outstanding wages, but I understand that the wages have since been paid.

An industrial grant of £60,000 was paid by An Foras Tionscal to the firm.

I have no function in the matter of industrial loans.

I do not know whether this relates to the same firm.

It does.

I do not know anything about it. Deputy Dunne did refer to the fact that some of the claims were in respect of holiday pay. I just want to ask the Minister is it a fact that holiday pay would come into the category of wages, not payment in lieu of notice?

I would have thought so, and, indeed, when I looked into this matter and inquired about that, I was informed the claim was not in respect of holiday pay but in respect of payment in lieu of notice.

That is not so. The workers tell me their holiday pay is due.