I want to raise the issue of the Debenhams workers and I know this has been raised with the Taoiseach several times. I put him on notice that we are going to keep raising it with him because the resolution of this dispute is extremely important.

My understanding is the Taoiseach is in receipt of two letters from the Mandate trade union, a registered, recognised trade union, not a breakaway, as we have been discussing recently. Mandate is looking for a meeting with the Taoiseach. Will he accede to that request for a meeting and will he redouble his efforts to help these workers? They are more than 200 days out. They are out in all weathers; it is freezing and they are there to try to protect the stock because that is all they have left. The Taoiseach is more than well aware of this dispute. I ask whether he will agree to meet with Mandate.

On the same matter, the workers have been 216 days on strike and they have been let down by Debenhams and KPMG. Many of them were very angry on Friday when they watched the soft sell by “The Late Late Show” and Ryan Tubridy in regard to KPMG. I wonder how much of that €15,000 bursary that it offered was made in its role with Debenhams. It is very simple: the Taoiseach can decide to intervene or not. The question we are asking him is a very simple “Yes” or “No” question. Will he intervene on behalf of the workers? It is a simple “Yes” or “No”.

On the same matter, these workers have been now out for seven months in the increasingly cold and wet weather on the picket lines. There is an increased danger with the threat of KPMG to walk away from the liquidation process. That is a threat not just to the workers but to the State. The simplest resolution here is for the State to step aside as a creditor and to use that money in order to make sure the workers get what they are owed.

I listened to the response of the Taoiseach yesterday to Deputy Gino Kenny. What the Taoiseach said was that this could create a situation where, effectively, companies could be incentivised to treat workers like this. What I would say back to him is that, in this case, Debenhams needed no such incentive and it treated its workers this way in any case. Second, if the Government implements the Duffy Cahill recommendations, as it has said it will, this situation would not arise.

That is not an answer to what I said yesterday. It is not a cogent answer. There is no logic to what Deputy Paul Murphy is saying. Is he saying that, in every liquidation, the State should step aside when there is a dispute?

No, I am saying that is what should be done in this case.

That is what the Deputy is saying. That is part of the problem with this - people presenting it as a very simple thing that can get solved simply if the State just removes itself as a creditor. If we did that in every situation, the State would be broke in double jig time. There would be no need for redundancies, no need for statutory schemes and no need for employers to honour any of their obligations. We would incentivise a whole range of behaviour that would be unacceptable.

That said, I take on board what Deputy Louise O'Reilly and others have said. We will redouble our efforts to see if we can get this resolved. I have no issue with meeting Mandate and I will try to organise that. I said yesterday to other Deputies who raised this that the Government has been involved insofar as it can be. Within the legal framework and the constraints around liquidation, and so on, the Government has been endeavouring to find a resolution to this. Unfortunately, the Workplace Relations Commission did not come to anything, not to blame the WRC. However, its initiative, which was welcomed, did not facilitate a resolution of this. It is problematic but we are going to see what we can do.