Joe Lee’s documentary, 406 Days, currently showing in cinemas, makes for compelling viewing.
It marries the very personal stories of almost 1,000 ex-Debenhams workers, mostly women, from the 11 department stores around the country, all of whom lost their jobs suddenly and without notice on the back of a generic email and the corporate privileges that were afforded to the liquidators of Debenhams’ Irish operation KPMG on behalf of a faceless UK organisation.
That organisation refused to pay the “2 + 2” redundancy package that the workers had negotiated in good faith with the company in 2016, which led to the longest industrial dispute in the history of the state as the workers tried to prevent stock being removed from the stores.
Tralee and Cork are featured prominently in the documentary and Councillor Deirdre Ferris of Sinn Féin is an impassioned supporter of the ex-workers in Kerry.
Independent TDs Mick Barry and Bríd Smith made strong cases in Dáil Éireann on behalf of the striking workers but it was Catherine Connolly, Independent TD representing Galway West, who got to the nub of the problem saying this was a technical insolvency where the assets from the Irish operations were stripped to the UK with company debt moved in the opposite direction.
This blood-boiling documentary, which has parallels with what happened to the workers at Clerys on O’Connell Street, leaves the viewer asking how can large-scale exploitation of ordinary workers like this be allowed to happen.
This film should be compulsory viewing for every councillor, TD, and Irish MEP and the issues raised should be front and centre when they come looking for votes next year.
Tom McElligott
Tournageehy
Listowel
Co Kerry
Commuter swaps for public sector
At the present time, we are running out of time.
Despondency, paralysis, and fighting amongst ourselves are the enemies. Smarter people than me are working on solutions — but there is no vaccine or single novel concept to rescue us. It has to be a Dunkirk-style solution. Thousands of small boats crewed by ordinary people.
Here is an idea. Maybe it holds water. Maybe it doesn’t. Let’s see if it floats. What follows is a stylised simplified model for the purposes of exposition.
Throughout the country, public sector employees doing identical jobs are passing each other going in opposite directions to their places of work. Teacher or nurse or civil servant X.
Living in location A and working in location B. At the same time, we have teacher or nurse or civil servant Y. Living in location B and working in location A.
If we did an audit on the statistical incidence of these scenarios we could, within reason, design a “commuter swap” scheme where public sector employees could exchange their places of employment, spend less time in their cars, save a fortune on motor fuel, and reduce the carbon footprint of everyone involved.
As I say, this is simplistic in many ways. But there is a significant number of people for whom such a scheme would work very well. And it would cost the Exchequer next to nothing.
I suggest that the Irish Examiner encourages its readers to send in their own climate crisis ideas. My father’s favourite motto was this: “The ideas are there, ’tis only to think of ’em.”
He was the cleverest person I ever met.
Michael Deasy
Bandon
Co Cork
Cotton fields in the hills of Donegal
What a view here of Errigal Mountain, and who said there are no cotton fields in Donegal?
‘Them old cotton fields back home’ is a song written by American blues musician Huddie Leadbetter, better known as Lead Belly, who first recorded the song in 1940.
There’s an opening for the likes of Daniel O’Donnell to put a few words together on our old cotton fields back home in the hills of Donegal.
James Woods
Donegal
Loud calls for a border poll
With the definitive end of the Troubles, the advancement of the peace process that came from the St Andrews agreement in October 2006, and the assembly elections in March 2007, the DUP and Sinn Féin formed a government for all the people of Northern Ireland.
People who have been divided for generations — split by the religious and political lines that fuelled the decades-long conflict that cost so many lives.
Basic everyday needs are common to both sides and that is why the Good Friday Agreement must be protected by all.
A solution will be found not on the basis of victory for either side but on the basis of agreement and partnership between both for the betterment of Ireland overall.
Sinn Féin’s rise is shaking up Ireland’s politics North and South and there are loud calls for a border poll under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
Noel Harrington
Kinsale
Co Cork
Varied refereeing in different sports
Having recently watched two major rugby finals and Cork v Limerick in hurling, I noticed the contrast in emotions displayed by referees on the fields of play; it was startling, to say the least.
In rugby the referee will blow the whistle and calmly seek informed confirmation from the appointed personnel available to him, to confirm or reverse the preliminary judgment made by him.
In the Cork v Limerick penalty decision, and many other instances similar to it in the past, the referee runs from a distance and spreads his arms out for a free or penalty, visibly caught up in the euphoria of the moment.
This action makes it very hard for a lines-person or umpire to attempt to alter a decision, especially when it is in front of tens of thousands of spectators.
John O Neill
Clonakilty
Cork
