The last time the Taoiseach and his party were in government and faced with a major crisis, at that time caused by the greed of bankers and developers, working people got it in the neck, hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs or had cuts to their pay and a decade of austerity followed. For most people, the test as to whether Fianna Fáil has changed and will lead the Government of change that people voted for on 8 February is how working people will fare under its governance. A key and immediate litmus test as to whether it will bring that change and whether ordinary, working people are going to get a fair deal and the support they need under this Government, faced with another crisis, is the situation faced by 1,500 Debenhams workers who have been protesting following Debenhams' treatment of them in the most despicable manner by, without consultation and without notice, moving the company into liquidation in April of this year. The company has refused to negotiate with the workers and is orchestrating this situation. Even though there are probably tens of millions of euro worth of stock in the stores in Henry Street, Blackrock, Cork, Tallaght and Blanchardstown, apparently, this is a company with no assets. This is because, conveniently, the company, through a subsidiary, lent itself some money and made the Irish business a co-guarantor on money that it lent to itself, effectively eliminating all assets from the balance sheet of the company. This is despicable treatment of workers.

The Taoiseach said earlier that he is focused on legislation. What does he propose to do to support the Debenhams workers? Debenhams cannot be allowed to siphon off assets, as it is trying to do, to prevent a fair redundancy deal for these workers. The legislation to re-order the priority creditors in situations of liquidation needs to be immediately amended such that workers in this situation are not treated in this despicable way, as happened in the case of the Clerys' workers. This issue has been well flagged. Where companies are contravening employment legislation or treating workers in this way they should suffer serious penalties for doing so. The Taoiseach needs to utilise all of the sections available to Government through the Companies Act 2014, in particular sections 599 and 608, to make sure that the company does not take off with the assets and that the workers get the fair redundancy and decent treatment they deserve. Solidarity-People Before Profit has placed a motion to this effect on the Dáil Order Paper, which the Debenhams' workers hope the Government and all parties will support and thus take the actions necessary to get them a just settlement. As we speak, these women workers are picketing outside the Henry Street store to prevent assets being physically removed from it by a cynical company that has treated them with contempt.

Debenhams has treated the workers very poorly and in a very shabby way and it is wrong to do so. The Deputy is correct that the company has availed of the legal framework within the Companies Act in regard to insolvencies, winding-up and so on, to leave the workers extremely short. The State will have to do its bit to provide, within the legal framework, what it can in terms of statutory redundancy, but it is unacceptable. In my view, the legislation will have to be re-examined in terms of the devices that companies may use, separating out assets from trading income in particular, to deprive workers of their just entitlements in terms of redundancy. This will not be simple because reform of any legislation can have unintended consequences. This issue is referenced in the programme for Government. It is an area on which work will commence in terms of examining the overall company law situation with a view to reducing the capacity of companies to deny workers their entitlements in terms of redundancy and workers' rights generally when a company is winding up.

It is an area in which work will commence in terms of examining the overall company law situation with a view to reducing the capacity of companies to deny workers their redundancy entitlements and their rights generally when a company is being wound up. That it happened in the context of Covid-19 was particularly regrettable. The sense is that Covid-19 was used as a basis for closing the company and leaving 1,500 people out of work.

I welcome, as I am sure the Debenhams workers will welcome, the Taoiseach's words of sympathy and his condemnation of how Debenhams has treated them, but the test is what the Government will do about it. We need to act urgently to do everything we can to make sure that Debenhams does not get away with manipulating the law as it stands to siphon off these assets. Its failure to consult workers and the fact that the State may have to pay out the statutory redundancy gives us certain leverage under that legislation for the insolvency fund to go after the assets of Debenhams, and we should do that. It tried to siphon off those assets but was prevented because of the heroic protests of the workers.

There are echoes of the Dunnes Stores-South Africa strike battle on those picket lines. I encourage the Taoiseach to go down and meet the women because they are an absolute inspiration and they are not going away. They are going to fight for justice. I appeal to the Taoiseach and the Government to do absolutely everything to ensure justice for the workers. The assets are in those shops. Debenhams must not be allowed to take them out. The assets should be liquidated to the benefit of the workers to ensure a just settlement for them.

There is a lot at stake because this is not just about Debenhams workers. We are facing potentially tens of thousands of similar redundancies, so this is a test. Are we going to stand with workers faced with this kind of treatment and the possibility of mass redundancies in this country to prevent that sort of shoddy treatment and to protect workers who have given decades of loyal service, as these workers have?

Again, I am not going to raise expectations that one cannot deliver on in terms of interfering in the liquidation process or making interventions that could not be legally sustained. For the existing workforce, the liquidation process and how we can leverage the remaining assets to secure the rights of workers is a challenging and complex issue, as the Deputy knows deep down. I accept his bona fides in respect of what he wishes to happen on behalf of the workers and understand where he is coming from in that regard.

There are a few dimensions to this. How can we support in the most practical way the workers who have been laid off? How can we prevent the exploitation of company law to prevent such exploitation of workers into the future? How can we build in greater protections for workers, in case of such eventualities, so that they will have greater claims and access to clawbacks following closures engineered in this way in future. That is what I would like to examine with my colleagues in government.