Next Friday, it will be precisely 365 days since almost 2,000 Debenhams workers received the shocking news, via email from the company, that they were being dumped after decades of loyal service. Those workers were soon to discover that despite having a collective agreement for two plus two weeks of redundancy per year of service, they would get nothing from this company that continues to generate tens of millions in online sales, including in this country. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to those Debenhams workers who continue to fight on. They are an inspiring exemplar of the decency, dignity and determination of working people, particularly women, fighting for their rights and decent treatment.

The Government failed to protect the Debenhams workers. Following on from what happened with Clerys, successive Governments have failed to introduce the legislation necessary to prevent this sort of despicable treatment of workers. In the past week or so, 460 workers were reluctantly forced to accept statutory redundancy by Arcadia, another company that had committed in an agreement to pay them two plus two weeks. These workers are also being failed by the Government. As already stated, that is because successive Governments have failed, following what happened in respect of Clerys, to act and introduce the necessary legislative protection for workers.

The despicable treatment of the Debenhams workers reached new lows last night in Blanchardstown, which is in the Tánaiste's constituency, where, in the midst of level 5 restrictions, agents acting for the liquidator, KPMG, sent strike-breakers into the store there to pack up boxes and load up trucks with stock. Workers, shop stewards, mothers and grandmothers who were there peacefully protesting, socially distanced, were lifted off the ground by gardaí and dragged away. Meanwhile, strike-breakers were allowed to remove stock from the store and move away unhindered. Since when is strike-breaking an essential category of work during level 5? Is that acceptable? Since when are workers who have been treated in a despicable way denied the right to protest in a socially distanced, responsible and peaceful way against their despicable treatment? When will legislation to ensure that the despicable treatment of the workers of Debenhams and Arcadia will never happen again be introduced?

I thank the Deputy. I only heard about those events in the past hour or so. Without knowing all the facts, I do not want to comment any further. However, I am of the view that the former Debenhams workers were very badly treated by their employer in the way they were laid off over a year ago. The Government has done all that it can to ensure that their legal rights and entitlements were upheld. Over €10 million has already been paid in statutory redundancy payments from the Social Insurance Fund to former Debenhams workers. Another €3 million has been offered on an ex gratia basis in terms of a retraining fund for workers. Discussions about how that might be deployed are taking place with the unions today. The Taoiseach, a number of Ministers and I have met the workers, the unions and Debenhams UK. We also made contact with the liquidators involved, the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, an office under my remit, and the chairman of the Labour Court. Major efforts have been made to resolve these issues in a way that is fair but also that is legal and does not create other unfair precedents.

The Debenhams workers have not been treated very fairly in other ways in the sense that they have not always been told the full truth regarding this dispute. The comparison the Deputy makes with Clerys is a bogus one. In that dispute, there was a very large and valuable property asset, a large building on O'Connell Street, and as a result of that it was possible for additional payments to be made to the former Clerys workers. In this case, the only assets are some fixtures and stock. Those assets are declining in value every day and have a total value that does not exceed the moneys owed by Debenhams to others. It is not the same as Clerys; it is very different. While we can and will make changes to company law and employment law, those changes that might have resulted in a different outcome to the matter relating to Clerys would not have resulted, I believe, in a different outcome in the case of Debenhams. Deputy Bríd Smith has acknowledged that in comments she has made in the Chamber.

In terms of the collective agreement and the two plus two mentioned by the Deputy, when this was examined by the chairman of the Labour Court he questioned whether it was valid in the event of an insolvency. That was a collective agreement reached in 2016 when voluntary redundancies were being made. It is highly questionable as to whether such an agreement applied in the event of an insolvency. It certainly did not apply in law, whatever about in contract. Examples have been raised in respect of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation and it has been suggested that public money from the Exchequer was used to pay termination payments in that case. We know now that that was not the case. There are many sad aspects to this whole affair, both the way in which Debenhams workers were treated by their employer and also the way in which they have been misinformed by certain people all along. That is wrong too.

I would not patronise the Debenhams workers by suggesting that they do not know precisely how they have been treated and what the facts of their dispute are. Is it not funny, as the shop stewards from Debenhams and Arcadia asked me before I came here, how the law and the system always favours the big corporations over, as the workers describe themselves, "the little people"? KPMG, a massively wealthy accountancy firm, sent its agents in to break a strike during level 5 restrictions which prevent non-essential retail outlets from opening. KPMG was allowed to do that but workers who protest peacefully, wear masks and are socially distanced are removed. That is the reality. How is it that the law never protects the workers? It is always too complicated to protect the workers. One of the Arcadia workers just told me that this is the third occasion in her lifetime she has not been paid her redundancy entitlements in situations of retail insolvency because successive Governments have failed to act to protect workers. There is always emergency legislation for the big people. There are always excuses for them, but action is never taken to protect workers who are treated in this despicable way.

The Deputy knows full well that the legal entitlement to redundancy in Ireland is two weeks per year of service. That is statutory redundancy. If the House or the Government decides to increase that to three or four weeks, so be it. That cannot be applied retrospectively, however. The legal entitlement is two weeks per year of service. Sometimes people have collective agreements that entitle them to more in certain circumstances but, as is almost always the case - if not always the case - such agreements for additional redundancy payments apply in a structured redundancy scheme, not in the event of a liquidation or an insolvency. That is an important point that people have chosen not to recognise in this instance.

The Deputy mentioned how the law works. Debenhams was a big corporation and it failed. The owners of the company - the shareholders - lost all their money. In insolvency, the first people to be wiped out are the owners, the shareholders in a company. Where there is money left over, there are creditors to be paid. Those highest up on the list of creditors are often the public, for example, through the Revenue Commissioners and local authorities, and also workers in the context of unpaid wages and statutory redundancy considerations. Collective agreements for additional redundancy occur and apply when a voluntary redundancy scheme or an agreed redundancy scheme is happening. They do not apply in the event of a liquidation.