Minister Bruton 'totally unhappy' with Clerys controversy

The Jobs Minister said he is "totally unhappy" with the situation that unfolded at Clerys in Dublin.

Former workers at the department store will protest this lunchtime at the offices of the new owners, Natrium, demanding a meeting to discuss wages and redundancy entitlements.

Yesterday it emerged the taxpayer is facing a bill of €2.5 million for the statutory redundancy of the 460 employees.

Minister Richard Bruton said we have to learn from what happened at the iconic Dublin store, and ensure it does not happen again.

"[I'm] totally unhappy - we're looking afresh at [it]. Minister [for Employment] Ged Nash has done an investigation on this - we're looking in the future to see what changes we need to make in our law to prevent this sort of thing happening."

"This was an appalling impact on the workers, and something we need to learn lessons from."