The Government has seen no evidence that the implementation of an expert group report commissioned following the closure of Clerys in 2015 would have addressed the situation involving former Debenhams staff, an Oireachtas committee has been told.
Minister of State at the Department of Business Enterprise and Innovation Damien English said the Duffy Cahill report dealt with assets and the separation of assets.
He told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment on Wednesday the authors of the report had not made the link with the situation in Debenhams.
Since the closure of the stores last spring, former Debenhams workers have been seeking the implementation of a redundancy package of four weeks pay per year of service that had been agreed with the company a number of years ago. This would be significantly higher than the statutory terms available currently.
Opposition TDs and campaigners have argued the implementation of the Duffy Cahill report’s recommendations, which were published in 2016, would have assisted the Debenhams workers.
Rise TD Paul Murphy maintained there had been a complete lack of urgency on the part of government in implementing the Duffy Cahill recommendations.
Mr English said there was a view being expressed that implementation of the Cahill Duffy report would resolve the situation for the Debenhams workers. However, he said, he was not sure this was the case and he had not seen evidence to support such an assertion .
“In relation to resolving Debenhams, the State can get involved under the law only so far in this situation – it is a private matter, with a private company. My heart goes out to all those workers, and I have engaged and met with them. And it is important the State steps in for its responsibilities, and it has done that.
“Some parts of this is to do with a private arrangement they had with their company, and they are working with the unions and the liquidator to try resolve that. The State just cannot fix that. Believe me, I wish we could. I know that the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste wish we could. But we can’t , just like that. We are trying to encourage them back to the table.”
Mr English said when the authors of the Duffy Cahill report had brought forward their six recommendations, they were specific to assets and did not look at wider policy context or costs as it was not part of their brief.
Mr English said the Government had initiated a process with union and employer representatives “to establish what would make a real difference to employees who find themselves in a redundancy situation due to company insolvency”.
However, he said there were “ no quick solutions”. He said the Government was “ working to find consensus around where any gaps there might be”.
The Minister said the issues that were being examined concerned:
* Employees access to information on the company’s financial situation
* Consultation periods
* Employees’ rights as creditors
* Asset transfer
* Treatment of collective agreements in insolvencies
* The establishment of a standalone fund to handle ex-gratia payments in insolvency situations
“I firmly believe that it is important to ensure that we have the most appropriate legislative infrastructure in place to ensure every worker’s rights are protected in a redundancy process while recognising there are redundancies that arise in different corporate contexts,”the Minister said.
“Some redundancies are about securing the company’s survival while others, unfortunately, happen in the context of the company closing its doors for good.”
The Minister said he aimed “to amend legislative provisions where an improvement is required and where it is workable and effective”.
