OPPOSITION TDS HAVE heavily criticised a High Court decision to grant an injunction to the joint liquidators of Debenhams Ireland preventing interference with their efforts to remove stock from the company’s former stores.
The injunction, granted this morning, applies to anyone with knowledge of the order.
Copies will be placed at the entrances of all former Debenhams stores.
Ex-workers have been picketing former stores and blocking the removal of stock from the shops in Dubin, Waterford and Limerick since the company was placed into liquidation in April.
The former employees have been locked in a dispute over redundancy terms after 1,000 workers lost their jobs.
The injunction was granted by Judge Leonie Reynolds this morning to the company’s joint liquidators, Kieran Wallace and Andrew O’Leary of KPMG.
People Before Profit TD Bríd Smyth described the ruling as “outrageous” and an attack on “the right to strike”.
“The former Debenhams workers are picketing, and have been for over six months, in order to attain an agreed redundancy package. For the State to effectively side with the company which is still trading online in this country is a disgrace.
“We are calling on the trade union movement to mobilise and support the former Debenhams workers on the pickets in order to achieve the two plus two redundancy that they deserve.”
Thomas Gould, Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central tweeted, “Absolutely disgraceful that the High Court have granted an injunction against Debenhams workers.
“Workers in this state should not be criminalised for fighting for their rights.”
Thomas Gould, Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central tweeted, “Absolutely disgraceful that the High Court have granted an injunction against Debenhams workers.
“Workers in this state should not be criminalised for fighting for their rights.”
The former Debenhams employees are fighting for enhanced redundancy payments of four weeks’ pay per year of service instead of the statutory two weeks.
They say this in line with packages agreed by their employer with workers who lost their jobs in previous rounds of redundancies.
The workers, represented by the trade union Mandate, also want the government to implement the findings of the 2016Duffy Cahill report.
That report recommended that where agreements for ‘enhanced’ redundancies have been negotiated by workers, they should be honoured as preferential creditors in any subsequent liquidation process.
If there is no cash or assets in the company — as is the case with Debenhams Ireland — to fund the enhanced packages, the report recommended that the State should foot the bill at the enhanced rate.
The company had four stores in Dublin, two in Cork and others in Galway, Limerick, Newbridge, Tralee and Waterford. Some Irish workers had almost 30 years’ service at Debenhams.
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