I ask the Seanad to show support for the Debenhams workers. In 1996, the great British retailer opened its first shop in the Jervis Shopping Centre in the constituency of Dublin Central. It had a great business, grew and was profitable, and then moved to the site of Roches Stores. On 9 April this year, it tactically moved its business from being a high street, shopfront business to being an online business. It still trades today and has a half-price sale, for anybody who is willing to spend money with the company when it resolves this issue. A total of 1,500 low-paid front-line workers, most of them women and many of them mothers, have been left high and dry by this great British retailer. I ask the Seanad and the State to support these workers.

Hear, hear.

The State has committed to pay statutory redundancy, and again today the State is supporting workers with the July stimulus plan. This is a tactical insolvency. I ask the House to ask the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation to write to the liquidator to ask, and if possible instruct, that in the hierarchy of creditors the employees be placed at the highest level so they can be properly compensated according to the agreement the employer entered into with them. I also ask the Minister to take immediate action to ensure we do not have a repetition of this situation in the lifetime of the Government.