Louise O'Reilly
Dublin Fingal West · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“I welcome this debate this afternoon and am happy to be able to make a small contribution to it. I grew up in a Border town. I ended up in that town because my father was a trade union organiser who represented workers on both sides of the Border for a long number of years and, in fact, went on to be based in the North for a long time.”
“I am fortunate enough to represent a constituency that is very firmly in the Dublin–Belfast economic corridor. Before partition, as we know, Belfast was a thriving industrial powerhouse. Partition put a lid on the potential of that city to grow and flourish.”
“When we talk about Irish unity, we should frame that discussion as one about potential for growth, the potential for all-Ireland working and all-Ireland business. Between Belfast and Dublin, there are five universities, numerous colleges of further education and training, and businesses that are ready to scale up.”
“As the debate on Irish unity advances, and it is advancing despite what some of the people opposite would like to happen, we need to frame that discussion in a positive way. We need to look clearly for those opportunities while acknowledging the challenges. We are not blind to the challenges.”
“If her letter does not have any impact - let us be honest; it has not had any impact - the Minister of State might outline what he will do that might go a bit further than writing a letter. We know that devices are essential. We know that parents want their kids to be able to participate.”
“I thank the Deputies for bringing forward this motion. I was chatting to my dad as I was coming in and told him I would be debating this motion in relation to supports for parents this morning. He reminded me, of course, that it was the Labour Party in government that cut those very supports.”
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“Ministers as well as members of the Opposition frequently say we recognise there will be a need to tease out issues, but that is what the committee process is for. It is regrettable that the Minister of State seeks to postpone the legislation. The Minister of State also mentioned we could be in danger of collecting too much data, yet she nodded, as I did, when an Teachta Farrell went through how tortuous it can be to get that information because it is not collated. I respect the fact the Minister of State might be concerned there could be too much information collected but I do not think we are anywhere near that space yet. In fact, we are a million miles away from it. Before I was elected, as Deputies will know, I worked as a trade union organiser.”
“There should be no difficulty there. I thank my colleague, an Teachta Farrell, for bringing forward this legislation. I also thank her, as the Minister of State did, for all her work on this issue. I cannot quite make sense of the Minister of State's amendment to postpone the Second Reading of the Bill for 24 months. I operate according to the principle that it is never the wrong time to do the right thing. The Minister of State said it is necessary to put it back to allow for consideration of complex legal issues. We are legislators and the committee process is supposed to allow us to do that and to deliberate. Nobody on the Minister of State's benches or these benches has ever bought legislation to the Dáil assuming that every word of it was perfect, nor would anyone be arrogant enough to do so.”
“Would he ever reflect on that and maybe think about the young couple paying some of the highest rents in Europe trying to save for a deposit to buy a house in the place where they were born and where they want to raise their family, to buy a house near a parent, to be able to raise their family close to their own family and where they grew up and how they are seeing that get further and further away? Every year the Minister of State's party is in government, it gets further and further away from them. In my constituency the average rent is well over €2,500. Meanwhile, the council tells tenants it has no money for the tenant in situ scheme, so people are forced into emergency accommodation. The Minister of State has neck to tell my constituents that €560,000 is affordable, which it is not.”
“This morning the DNG report tells us that in Dublin the average cost of a second hand home is €600,000. I have a very simple question for the Minister of State. Who is buying these houses? Who is earning the money to pay 600 grand for a second-hand house in Dublin? People want to live near their family, which is not an outrageous thing to want. They want to live in the city they were born in. They want to raise their family there. Does the Minister of State accept that because of his Government's policies that is becoming less and less likely, if not impossible, for anybody who is on anything close to a normal wage? Does he understand how much a person would have to earn to buy one of those houses, the average cost of which is €600,000?”
“The Government should end its delaying tactics, set a date for the referendum and let us work together so that all Irish citizens can have a vote for their President.”
“The Government should not allow the disenfranchisement of a significant portion of the population of this island. The President of Ireland is the President of all of Ireland. If you live in Balbriggan, you have a say and that is right, but if you go a few miles up the road to Newry, you are left out and disenfranchised. Likewise, if you go abroad, as the Minister of State does, you meet people who have been forced out by his Government’s housing crisis. The Minister of State can shake his head, but he should ask them when he is next abroad and they will tell him why they have been forced out. When he speaks to them, they will tell him very clearly that they want the right to vote. They have a stake in what happens and they want to keep an eye on this island because most of them want to come home.”
“The constitutional convention met in 2013 to consider the issue of voting rights for citizens living outside this State. A clear majority backed voting rights for citizens in presidential elections. Sinn Féin first tabled legislation to give effect to this recommendation in 2014. The Bill passed First and Second Stages and we have retabled it in every Dáil since. A motion on extending presidential voting rights was passed in the Northern Assembly earlier this year. This is absolutely massive. This is the Government’s cue to take action. Ignoring the clear views of the Assembly and the convention goes against the very spirit of the Good Friday Agreement. We will have a presidential election later this year, and those Irish citizens in the North who want to vote will be left out once again.”
“Will the Taoiseach engage with the Minister for housing to ensure people can access this scheme? As I have said, their houses are literally falling down around their ears.”
“There are people in my constituency living in homes that are falling down around their ears. Their homes are literally falling apart. People are doing their best in terms of minor repairs to stop bits of the walls and roof from falling down. The Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks Act 2022 allows for country councils to be admitted to the remediation scheme. My local authority, Fingal County Council, applied in September 2023. My understanding is that the Housing Agency report, which was the latest impediment identified by the Government to my constituents being admitted to the scheme, is now with the Minister for housing. The responses we get when we ask questions tell us that it will happen shortly, in the future or perhaps in a while.”
“In the absence of those measures, long-term measures will have to be put in place to tackle the acute cost-of-living crisis that is impacting on children very severely. The figures bear that out.”
“The Minister must acknowledge that the direction of travel is not good, as we see from the SILC data. I respect what he is saying and it may be that the data starts going in a different direction, but I do not believe it will. A lot of the investment he mentioned involved one-off, non-recurring payments to deal with an acute cost-of-living crisis. That crisis has not gone away and is still acute. The Government is saying there will be no one-off measures in the next budget. How will it tackle the rates of child poverty? We do not need to do a poll to know those rates are unacceptable. How will the Minister deal with this issue in the absence of one-off measures? He is relying on such measures to make the argument that when they wash through, there will be a change in the figures.”
“The notion that there might be people sitting either at parliamentary party meetings or around the Cabinet table, God help us, who believe the cost-of-living crisis is over is deeply disturbing. The cost-of-living crisis is very much not over and it must be urgently addressed by the Government.”
“My worry is that we have had targets previously and they were missed by a mile. A concerted effort is needed. When we talk about deprivation and child poverty, we are talking about households in which members are unable to afford two pairs of properly fitting shoes that are in good condition and suitable for daily activities, or a warm waterproof coat. It is unimaginable that poverty on this scale is happening in the State when it really does not need to be occurring. The statistics show who needs to be targeted, including, in particular, lone-parent households, especially where there are teenagers, who bring additional costs. What we are hearing in the media from the Minister's Government colleagues is really disturbing.”
“The child poverty monitor published recently by the Children's Rights Alliance makes for very depressing and alarming reading. Far from being equal to its commitment to tackling child poverty, the Government is overseeing a rise in rates of child poverty. The Minister and I both know that the only way to address this issue in any meaningful way is through in-cash payments that are targeted directly at those who need them. I ask him to outline his plans in this regard.”
“I know of organisations and companies that are offering buy now and pay later terms. That is families having to get themselves into debt just so their kids can go to school. This goes completely against the principle of the back-to-school allowance. It has now been superseded by the need to purchase devices. I urge the Minister to have a discussion with the Minister, Deputy McEntee, but the money will come from the Minister, Deputy Calleary's Department. It will be the extent to which that the Minister can champion this that it will be done.”
“I understand the need to get the money to where it needs to be. With the greatest of respect, the Minister does not need to do a review to understand that kids who are in foster care are among the most likely to be experiencing deprivation. They are effectively in the care of the State. I urge the Minister to look at that again because the means test is unfair. We are not talking in the context of a large budget. We are not talking about a large amount of money. I understand that big budgets are made up of many small asks. In the last couple of days, I read in the newspaper that some of the Minister's colleagues are saying that the cost-of-living crisis is over. Good luck with that project as they go out to their clinics because it is not. Families are being put to the pin of their collar.”
“The issue of having to purchase devices is coming into my office a lot. It is probably coming into everyone's office at this stage. While obviously there is a benefit to parents of not having to buy schoolbooks, that benefit is entirely undermined if they then have to spend the equivalent amount or more. I welcome the Minister's recent announcement of the extension of the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance to foster families, but they will be means tested for it, which will exclude a lot. I know I am tacking that onto the end of my question but I am sure the Minister will not mind and that the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will indulge me.”
“If there is a more favourable rate available, I am sure the Minister can imagine how those excluded from that rate feel for the weeks of the year when they do not get any payment. These are the only people in the school who will not be paid over the summer. I am not saying they are treated as second-class citizens. I am saying they have possibly every right to feel like they are, then they look at the jobseeker's benefit and see the same treatment applied. I ask that the Minister look at this group in particular.”
“I ask the Minister to charge the people doing the review with the responsibility of looking at seasonal workers. To be frank, that is possibly the least that the Minister could do but I ask that he do that. There should be some engagement about the people who are excluded with the trade union, Fórsa, because it represents the bulk of the secretaries and caretakers. It is not just them but all seasonal workers. There is a more favourable rate of jobseeker's benefit available and a group of low-income workers is excluded from it. Does the Minister see where I am going with this? These are not people who are on big money. When people are on jobseeker's, they are broke. It does not matter if they have known for a couple of weeks that they are going to be on jobseeker's.”
“Will the Minister reconsider his decision and examine the group I have mentioned, in particular, perhaps in the context of the cost-of-living crisis or commitments on child poverty? The Minister should do whatever it takes and consider again the groups who are excluded.”
“I will hold the Minister to that. I will be back here in September to check against delivery, as the Government often states regarding its statements. The Minister has not advanced any satisfactory justification for why the group has been excluded. He states they can predict they are going to be unemployed, but even if you know you are going to be broke or are surprised by being broke in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, you are still broke. At the committee meeting last week, the Minister spoke at length about his commitment to make some efforts with regard to child poverty, which I do not doubt for a moment, but what about the children of school secretaries, school caretakers, seasonal workers and those on very low incomes? Just because they know they are going to be struggling does not mean they will be struggling any less.”
“Maidin mhaith do gach duine. As is often the case, my question is very simple and straightforward. It gives the Minister the chance to explain why a category of workers, particularly those in seasonal, casual, short-term or part-time employment, such as school caretakers and secretaries but not exclusively, are excluded from the Government’s new pay-related jobseeker's benefit.”
“I urge him to listen to what the Opposition is saying, engage on the amendments and support those that will make this legislation stronger and that will at least make a small difference in the lives of the people who are in desperate need.”
“I have spoken to them recently and they tell me they cannot find anywhere to live within their means. They cannot afford a mortgage and, because of the way house prices have gone up, they do not earn enough to buy a house and they earn too much to qualify for housing assistance. They are literally caught in the middle. They ask the simple question of who are the Government policies supposed to help? They are not helping them. We can see they help vulture funds, investors and people with big money to buy loads of property and rent it out but who is it that the Government is supposed to be helping? I really hope he accepts the amendments tabled by my colleagues in order to ensure that at least something is done. However, he knows what the impact of putting RPZs in place where rents are already massively out of control is going to be.”
“The Government built affordable houses - you would laugh if it was not so serious - in my constituency that cost over €500,000 each. When replying, the Minister might tell me who exactly is affording that? When he was labelling those houses as being affordable, what kind of income did he have in mind? What kind of people does he think are going to be able to afford that accommodation? Shortly before the election, I met a family. They had been evicted from their accommodation in Swords and were living with her family in Lusk. It was massively overcrowded. Everyone was squeezed into one bedroom. They have good jobs. These are normal jobs. They are not big-money jobs, and certainly not big enough to get into the circle of people the Government cares about. The people in question work hard.”
“because they want the Government to know they are angry. They also, and this is really important, need the Government to understand that as hard as it might try to normalise children growing up in hotels people will not allow that. The Government tries very hard to make people accept that on the last Friday of every month, it rambles out and announces the latest homelessness figures. That was not a feature when I was growing up or when the Leas-Cheann Comhairle was growing up. We know that is not normal at all. The Government can try but it will not succeed because people remember what it was like to have a functioning housing market. In my constituency of Dublin Fingal West the latest Daft report tells us rents have gone up by 7.2%, in case the Ministers do not know, in a rent pressure zone. The average rent is now €2,371.”
“Despite the Government’s best efforts to normalise this housing crisis people still have a memory of what it was like before they destroyed it. People still have some residual memory of what it is like for a young person to be able to aspire to secure accommodation, be it rented or accommodation they can purchase. Yesterday, there were thousands of people outside this building protesting about homelessness. One of them was my father. Fifty-six years ago, he was a member of the Dublin Housing Action Committee. That was a group of people who came together to fight for the rights of people to decent and secure housing. He has said to me a few times that he did not think he would have to be back on the streets again, but that is exactly where he has to be. That is where people will be next Saturday in Cork at the National Monument at 2 p.m.”
“It sometimes strikes me that if it was not for incompetence, there would be no competence at all with this Government. There are 15,500 people homeless. Of those, 5,000 are children. That is evidence for anyone with eyes to see that the Government’s policy is failing. They do not need us to tell them - Government members should be able to see that for themselves. I am sure they do not go home in the evening when they have finished work and think they are proud of those homeless figures. I am sure that when they reflect, they are ashamed. I hope they are. I hope that sometimes they have time in their day to think about kids who are growing up in emergency accommodation who will find themselves ostracised in school because they cannot have people over for sleepovers and they cannot have a normal life.”
“We all want it to work and we all want a more efficient bus transfer but the elimination of the 33 route will crease people trying to commute and will place unnecessary and undue pressure on the trains, which cannot take it. I would like the Minister of State to pass that message on to the Minister. Things have got worse for my constituents since he became Minister. We hope there is nothing personal in it.”
“That was a mistake and they want it reversed. They also do not want to have to pay €440 extra for the pleasure of squashing on to overcrowded trains. On the subject of overcrowding, in order to alleviate the pressure on the rail network, such as on the coast where I live, it is important we have reliable bus services. I attended a meeting in Lusk recently with people from Rush, Lusk, Skerries and Balbriggan. Their concern is BusConnects will not enhance the bus service; it will actually mean more people have to go on trains. They will have to pay more and the trains will get more overcrowded. There needs to be strong consultation on BusConnects.”
“I thank the Deputies for tabling this motion and giving us the chance to have this discussion. The Minister of State said the implementation of the new fares strategy is making fares fairer. It is for some people, definitely, but for the people I represent in Dublin Fingal West, since Darragh O'Brien became transport Minister, the cost of commuting from Balbriggan and Skerries has increased by over €400 per annum. The cost for children using public transport has increased by 300%. I welcome that the NTA will look at bringing in a capped card but I can tell the Minister of State and ask him to pass on to the senior Minister that people living in Skerries and Balbriggan will not stand for being taken out of the Dublin commuter zone. They are Dubs. The Government took them out of the Dublin commuter zone and should not have done that.”
“I had to look away for some of it because it is heartbreaking. What is most heartbreaking of all is that this is not new. This is not news. This did not just happen. This has been happening for decades. I hope the Minister of State is true to his word today when he says that he is serious about tackling this issue. I hope he does that. He and his legacy will be measured against how elderly people are treated. He knows that people should be given a reasonable choice to stay at home if that is what they want to do. The Government does not give them a choice. It forces them into nursing homes and we see how they are treated. The Minister of State's words are one thing but his actions will tell a lot.”
“He went on to say that the system is increasingly reliant on "a small number of profit-driven operators". That is the problem. A small number of people are trying to make a profit off the withholding of incontinence wear from old people. I am struck by the indignity of It. They are making money by cutting corners on incontinence wear, staff and food in order to chase profit, and the Government is facilitating it. The Rostrevor nursing home revelations shocked everyone when they came to light. Micheál Martin was the Minister for Health and Children at the time, and he is the Taoiseach now. There is an unbroken pattern here. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have their hands and their fingerprints all over this because it is their policy. I could not watch all of the "RTÉ Investigates" programme.”
“The State gives these lucrative contracts to unvetted providers for emergency accommodation, and the provision of services for international protection applicants. You are making millionaires off the back of human misery and indignity, and poor treatment of our older and vulnerable people. You have been warned; it is not just the Opposition saying this. The ESRI told the Government very clearly. Brendan Walsh said: Ireland is at an important juncture in establishing a sustainable long-term care system for older people. The COVID-19 pandemic had a terrible impact on LTRC residents and workers. But this period also saw large changes in supply, ownership, and financing, and the LTRC sector faces a number of challenges as it emerges from the pandemic.”
“They were absolutely petrified. The residents had been taken off. They were the whistleblowers and they were left completely abandoned. Jesus Christ, Minister, when they described to me how they were told to behave, how they were instructed and how the instructions came from the top, I learned about what happens. That is why we are here to look to the Minister of State and the Government to show some leadership on this. The first time Rostrevor and the Lipsetts, who are the owners, came to public attention was before Leas Cross. The second time was six years after Leas Cross. The latest "RTÉ Investigates" programme is 20 years after Leas Cross, yet we see that very little is changing.”
“In August 2004, the health board sought an injunction from the High Court to have the home closed. The owner, Therese Lipsett, was fined but the nursing home stayed open. I ask Deputies to bear in mind that Micheál Martin, the famous learner of all the lessons, was the health Minister at the time and throughout this. If we fast forward to 2011, when Fine Gael was in government with the Labour Party, we will see that HIQA brought the HSE into the same nursing home. All the lessons that were supposed to be learned were not. The Irish Mail on Sunday used the phrase "house of horrors" to describe the conditions. Nothing had changed. When that nursing home was closed down in 2011, I was asked to go there to give some advice to the workers because I was representing healthcare workers at the time. They were migrant workers.”
“In 2004 the Sunday Independent reported on the Rostrevor nursing home in Rathgar. It had obtained a report that was dated August 2000. That report described the facility as being dirty and grubby throughout. It referenced an elderly man being fed his meals on a commode. Further inspections revealed that health board recommendations had not been implemented. A frail elderly man was found cold and unkempt. The report said that there was little evidence of continence wear provision for clients. The indignity of this is hard to believe. Four months later, in 2001, ongoing breaches of nursing home regulations were found. The then south-western health board subsequently said that the threat of revocation of the licence was not pursued in 2001 because the issues had been addressed. However, nothing improved.”
“There as twice as many applications for housing maintenance as there are local authority dwellings in my constituency. The Government is not maintaining the housing stock, which is being left to rot. When people hand back the keys, it is far too expensive to remedy because the Government is not funding the local authority to bring those homes back into use. We have a housing crisis because of Government policy. That is the only reason.”
“I see it because they come to my constituency clinic and ask me a question: "Why is there a boarded-up house down the road from me when I am stuck in my mother's back bedroom and my kids are all forced to share the same room?" What do I say? I tell them it is Government policy because that is what it is. The responses to the freedom of information requests by Deputy Gould's office make an absolute lie out of the Minister of State's weaselly words this evening. The Deputy has put the facts on the record. He has offered a solution, which is what my constituents want. How dare the Minister of State come in here and pat himself on the back. He said rolling out planned maintenance programmes means issues can be identified early on and there can be a systematic response. Will he go away out of that?”
“The Minister of State has some neck to move that amendment. I thank Deputy Gould for bringing forward the motion and for all his work on this issue. There are 126 boarded-up homes in Fingal County Council's area. That amounts to 500 men, women and children who could be housed. Can the Minister of State imagine what it must be like for people to walk past those houses when they are living in overcrowded and unsuitable accommodation that absolutely interferes with their ability to live a decent life? They walk down the road and see a boarded-up house. The Minister of State's party colleague is clever enough not to have an office locally. Constituents cannot find her because she is hiding from his housing crisis.”
“While we know vulnerable people will need access to generators and community hubs, in many cases, when people went to the community centres, they found them in a poor state of repair. Now is the time for the Government to be planning. It is the time for the Government to look at the humanitarian assistance scheme and how it operated. While it was great at advertising all the forms people had to fill out, it was not so good at getting the money to people when they needed it. I urge the Minister of State to recognise that now is the time to plan. The Government does not seem interested in taking action on climate change. As a result, it must plan for the climate disasters that are going to happen.”
“People and local communities came out and looked after and helped each other. It also showed that communities and individuals were badly let down by the Government’s failure to plan. Deficiencies in infrastructure and a lack of basic things such as access to generators left vulnerable people badly exposed. I will mention a case which I mentioned at the time of the storm. It relates to a young woman who uses a power-assisted wheelchair and who was completely stranded for days. She could not leave the house, move around, go to college or get out to do any shopping. She was literally stranded. She needed a generator and access to power to charge the battery on her wheelchair.”
“The latest figures indicate that none of the State’s biggest emitters, namely the transport, agriculture and electricity sectors, will meet their climate targets. In most sectors, emissions are continuing to rise. We know what is going to happen if we do not hit those targets. Ireland will potentially be fined up to €26 billion. In light of its record, the Government is either not prepared or is incapable of taking the necessary action. We know we are going to face more extreme weather events and that this Government and those that succeed it are going to have to deal with them. The most recent extreme weather event this island experienced was Storm Éowyn, which showed up a number of things. First, it showed the meitheal that exists within our local communities. People showed up for each other.”
“Climate change is here. The Minister of State knows this. It is very real. Coastal towns in constituencies like mine are very much on the front line of this emergency. Extreme weather is inevitable and the Government’s record on climate preparedness is absolutely shocking. Yesterday, The Irish Times reported that the EPA has published its latest projections in respect of Ireland’s climate targets for 2030. Those projections are very bad news for Ireland. The State has the worst emissions levels per capita in Europe. Projections show that our greenhouse gas emissions will fall by just 23% by 2030 compared with our original target of 51%, according to the EPA. Stop Climate Chaos has described these emissions levels as both alarming and shocking.”
“This Bill goes some way towards addressing the issues of insolvencies but we need to see action from the Government in relation to tactical insolvencies because those employers have big, deep pockets and access to a lot of legal advice and the workers are left bereft. We need to outlaw that.”
“There have been no increases to the sick pay, which were promised, and there is no commitment to a living wage, which has been pushed out again. There is yet another delay to auto-enrolment. Workers know who is going to be on their side. They know who they can rely on when the pressure is on. I hope I am wrong on this but I believe the transposition of the EU directive will show the Government in very stark relief for what it really is, and that is not a Government that is prepared to stand with or stand up for workers but it is a Government that will always and forever be on the side of the bosses.”
“No worker would be foolish enough, certainly not anyone who saw what happened with Clerys, Debenhams, TalkTalk, La Senza, the Paris Bakery and all of the others, to think that if they wait around long enough that a Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Government is going to be on their side. What they need is the protection of their trade union. It gravely worries me when I hear from lobby groups and some in government that they do not think there will be a need for legislation arising out of this. There will be a need for very robust legislation in order to protect workers. The truth is that until workers have a Government on their side, the right to organise will not be delivered. We know the Government not necessarily by what it says but by its actions.”
“That is really welcome, because there is nothing more unjust for a worker who is working hard and doing nothing wrong than when their employer becomes insolvent. A suggestion I have is not perhaps for this legislation but could be considered for the future. The Government should be looking at protecting collective agreements because they are the backbone of a unionised workforce. In the next couple of months, we will see the transposition of the EU adequate minimum wage directive. That will tell a tale about where this Government stands. I do not want to spoil it for anyone but the Government rarely stands on the side of workers. The Minister knows that. The transposition of the directive will show this. What workers need is the legal right to organise. They need those protections in their workplace.”
“Some of them - the Debenhams workers are a very good example of this - were subject to a collective agreement. Anyone who has ever negotiated an agreement knows there is give and take. They got some enhanced payments for redundancy written into their collective agreement but we know that they also had to give. However, when it came to it, there was no protection for their collective agreement. Some of them had worked that agreement for years. It did place some onus on the employees and the workers to do certain things and in return there was the enhanced redundancy. I note that the Minister's script said that it would protect workers in the event of their employer's insolvency and cover certain pay and pension related entitlements that employees may be owed by their insolvent employer.”
“I was in Liberty Hall when Clerys closed down. I remember the shock of the workers. They were completely shell-shocked. In any man's language, we could call it a tactical insolvency. The response of the Government through the Minister for labour at the time, Joan Burton, was to turn Liberty Hall into a dole office. She just gave the workers advice on how to access social welfare. She said there was nothing there for them and she certainly was not prepared to do anything for them. We see this again and again. There was Clerys, Debenhams, TalkTalk, La Senza and the Paris Bakery. What is the one thing all of these had in common? It was mostly women workers on low pay. Apart from a small few examples, they were not unionised. They were left high and dry by their employers.”