Occupation of Debenhams in Cork to end this afternoon
Ex Debenhams workers held a rally outside the Debenhams store on Patrick Street, Cork this afternoon on day 153 of their protest. The ex-worker's three-day sit-in of the Patrick St premises will end today. Picture: Andy Gibson
Former Debenhams staff who have been occupying the retailer's Patrick Street premises in Cork since Tuesday will end their sit-in at 12.30pm.
The workers plan to leave through the Maylor St entrance, before marching to the front of the store on Patrick St where they will hold an on-street press conference.
Staff have occupied the premises since Tuesday morning.
Similar protests took place at Debenhams premises in Dublin.
Former workers have been protesting at different locations around Ireland for the past 154 days. They are demanding better redundancy terms.
They had been offered just one day on top of the statutory minimum of two weeks pay per year of service, but they are seeking a settlement of 4-weeks per year of service.
Gardaí arrested a number of the staff who staged a sit-in in Dublin earlier this week but no arrests were made in Cork.
Speaking on RTÉ's today, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the Government will do everything it can "within the legal framework" to support the Debenhams workers.
However, he said "you can't just invent a scheme for one particular situation" as it would have knock-in impacts.
"I think the workers here have been treated very shabbily by the company.
"They've been a long time on the picket line. And it's been very, very difficult for them individually and for their families," he said.
Yesterday, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar said that while the former Debenhams workers had been [url=
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40045709.html]"very badly by their employer"[/url] they would get their statutory redundancy, their unpaid wages and their unpaid annual leave, and nothing more.
Mr Varadkar added that the Debenhams insolvency was "not a tactical insolvency, it is a real insolvency.”
Valerie Conlon, steward of the Patrick St store says that the government and the liquidator, KPMG, have come out of the protests negatively.
She said: "If you were to listen to Leo Varadkar, you would hear he is being negative. KPMG has come out of this negatively.
"We want the sit-in to end that this stage, we hope there will be talks after this.
Speaking on RTÉ's 6.1 News last night, KPMG's Andrew O'Leary said that court injunctions against pockets blocking the removal of stock from the Debenhams stores "was an option," if the pickets were not soon lifted.
Solidarity TD for Cork North-Central Mick Barry says that any threats of court injunctions against the Debenhams workers should be immediately withdrawn.
"KPMG know full well that pickets will not be lifted in the absence of a just settlement. KPMG also know that court injunctions will not succeed in frightening off the pickets.
"What the liquidator is really doing here is to threaten these workers with the possibility of being jailed."
Asked if the protesters have had any contact from the liquidator thus far, Ms Conlon said: "We have had none since the very beginning of this.
"We had some mandatory conferences by Zoom then, but that was it. In-store they haven't come down to us at all, they only sent security down."
When asked if the former Debenhams staff would be prepared to hold similar sit-in protests again in the future, Ms Conlon said that the Patrick St occupation was "done."
"However, there are another ten premises in the country," she added.
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