Taoiseach insists Debenhams' training fund cannot be used to top up redundancy
Former Debenhams workers marked their 300th day picketing outside Cork's Patrick Street store this week. Picture: Larry Cummins
The Taoiseach has ruled out using the €3m training fund for the former Debenhams workers to top up their statutory redundancy payments.
The news will come as a blow to the former retail staff, who marked the 300th day of their dispute in pursuit of enhanced redundancy payments on Wednesday.
They lost their jobs last April when the retailer’s Irish operation went into liquidation. They have mounted official pickets on 11 stores since – four in Dublin, as well as in Galway, Tralee, Newbridge, Limerick, Waterford and at two locations in Cork – Mahon Point and Patrick Street.
The training fund was announced last December as part of a recommendation drafted by mediator and Labour Court chairman Kevin Foley, following extensive engagement with the workers and their union Mandate, the liquidators KPMG, and various Government agencies in a bid to resolve the long-running dispute.
But workers voted to reject the deal in January, describing the offer as insulting, and they called on the Government to convert it to cash payments to top up their statutory redundancy payments.
In an interview with Neil Prendeville on Cork’s RedFM on Thursday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the fund has been "made available for the purposes that have already been outlined" and that can’t change.
“We have done everything we can to try and be of help and assistance here,” he said.
“Employers have to step up to the plate and honour their commitments as well.”
He said the Government had already paid out some €13m in statutory redundancy payments to the workers, and the danger was that the Government, and ultimately the taxpayer, could be left in the situation of having to bail out every employer who just refuses to honour their commitments.
Michelle Gavin, shop steward from the Debenhams Waterford store, blamed the Government for the entire debacle.
“They let Debenhams do this to us, so they should fix it and make it right,” she said.
Valerie Conlon, shop steward from the Patrick Street store, said they’d spent 300 days in hail, rain and snow during a pandemic, and all because the Government refused to legislate to protect workers in redundancy situations back in 2016.
She also claimed the Taoiseach has failed to respond to recent letters from the workers.
But Mr Martin defended the Government’s role and said it had been the only party that “stood up to the plate” since Debenhams’ Irish operation went into liquidation.
He said there were legal constraints and implications for the social insurance fund and for the country’s statutory redundancy policy more broadly that must be taken into consideration.
“Everyone is aware of what we have attempted to do within the law,” he said.
“I didn’t say to people from the outset of this dispute that this was simple, that it was going to be resolved.
“I think other politicians did and gave impressions that things could be done that couldn’t be done, and every time a liquidation happens.” He said he was happy to meet with and discuss the issue with the workers again.
