Early this morning I stood with workers at the Debenhams picket line in Blackrock along with shop stewards, workers from other Debenhams stores across the city who came to their aid and many from the local area and beyond supporting them and was witness to strikebreakers from KPMG arriving, attempting to enter the store to remove assets and break the Debenhams picket line. They acted in quite an aggressive manner against a peaceful, socially distanced protest. It was an appalling vista. The women strikers, who have worked for years, paid tax and played by all the rules were put in an invidious position, surrounded by gardaí. In fairness, they did not intervene, but the workers asked why they were there and pointed out that they are not criminals but are just fighting for their jobs, fair redundancy and decent treatment at the hands of a company that has treated them appallingly. All of them asked again and again why the Taoiseach will not get off the fence, intervene on their behalf and do the simple thing of calling in KPMG, asking them to stop behaving in this way, asking them publicly to stop trying to break the strike and holding a meeting with the shop stewards, the workers and KPMG.

There is a more serious issue at stake here because from midnight tonight we go into level 5. The State needs to declare that the removal of stock from Debenhams is non-essential work that does not fall into the category of what is allowed to be taken on over the next six weeks. The only beneficiaries of the removal of this stock are KPMG itself, which may get enough money to be paid whatever big sum it gets, and the State and the Government, which is refusing to forgo their payment back to allow the workers to receive proper redundancy. The Government needs to declare that the work KPMG seems intent on carrying out in removing stock from Debenhams is not legal over the next six-week period. That needs to be said to KPMG at the very minimum.

In my view, the action taken this morning is not necessary and should not happen right now, but calling in KPMG on its own will not solve this. In the first phase, when efforts were made to resolve this by some parties, €1 million emerged on the table out of the process. How do the Deputies think that €1 million would be realised?

There is more.

We can keep looking for declarations of this and declarations of that. That will not resolve the problem. The Government has to make sure that whatever happens does not create new precedents elsewhere or allow certain employments and certain rogue employers, for want of a better term, in the future to just land everything on the State. That cannot happen either. I am not saying that is the case here. The company is in liquidation. I do not like the way the workers have been treated from the get-go. There should be stronger legislation to provide underpinning for collective agreements into the future in order that workers get their fair share along with others. I understand and have no issue with the motivation of the Deputies in trying to get a resolution to this. As for the precise mechanisms to enable us to do that, we are pursuing to see what can be done.

Answer my question, please.

My view is-----