Ruth Coppinger
Dublin West · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“Next Wednesday, the trial continues of the Ulm five, including the Irish citizen, Daniel Tatlow-Devally. A delegation of TDs and Senators, including me, will attend the trial in Stuttgart next week.”
“This man said of one woman that he would attach her to a concrete block. He said of another that he would set fire to her. Should this person be getting a pay off from the Army? No, of course, he should not. He should have been put on trial.”
“I have very little time left, but I want to put on record that the woman in question was abused by an Army officer using military equipment and surveillance technology, which is extremely scary. She made a complaint, which has never been pursued.”
“When is the victims of crime Act 2017 going to apply the Army? The Women of Honour have pushed for change so that if there is abuse within the Army there will, we hope, be mechanisms to deal with that, but what about women who are abused by Army personnel who are not in the Army?”
“This officer was involved in a GoFundMe campaign, where rapists' names were used as a joke by the various men who contributed to it. I do not think rape is funny and the Army should not either. That GoFundMe campaign was left up for a long time. Why is the Army a law unto itself in relation to gender-based violence?”
“The victim's belief is that the military prosecutor has evidence of a very dangerous man but for some reason, the Army does not seem to be concerned because it has not prosecuted him on those charges. Why would the Army not want to prosecute somebody? Are we at war or something? Why is it so secretive?”
The complete record
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“This is having an impact on young women and non-binary people. Sixty-seven per cent of schoolgirls said their school environment is not a safe place and 70% feel social media negatively affects their mental health. There is no discussion of International Women's Day on the Dáil schedule this week, which is outrageous because these issues are huge. I was thinking of reading out some of the comments I have been exposed to just for being a woman in public life, as I am sure other female TDs and other people have, and for people of colour it is even worse. The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, ASTI, has been reporting on this. A huge majority of educators note that online manosphere content negatively affects students. The Minister made a statement that Coimisiún na Meán is dealing with all this and that it is all in hand.”
“It is being fed to young men at an alarming rate. The ideas it puts forward are that men should control women and that traditional gender roles are what we should have, and it is having a real impact. A third of young men believe that you cannot change your mind after consenting to sex, that at no point can you change your mind after that. Forty-six per cent of all men believe that people make up or exaggerate claims of non-consensual sex, according to a Dublin Rape Crisis Centre report. Forty percent of Irish men believe in traditionalist ideas of men and women, but it is much higher among younger men who are being fed this content. They agreed with or were unsure of statements such as "men who do not dominate in relationships are not real men"; it was 52% in relation to that.”
“Teachers, the Rape Crisis Centre and everybody has been studying its impact. Andrew Tate has 10.8 million followers on Twitter alone. We all know the statistic about 23 minutes; a16- to 18-year-old young man who sets up an account will be bombarded. Our young men are being groomed to hate women and the Minister does not seem to think this is a problem, because he has proposed absolutely nothing to deal with it. He is not going to support this Bill today, but he has not told us what he is going to do about this issue. I have raised this matter before. This is not new and everybody has been telling the Minister this. Toxic masculinity has an impact on the safety of women and children. The institute of men's health has reported 73% of gen Z are consuming this. Sixty-one per cent of all men consume this toxic content regularly.”
“I am not going to read all of them because they are too horrific, but let us bring a bit of reality in here as to what young women are having to suffer every day on the Internet. These messages included, "You slutty garbage." I will not go into what they proposed to do to her next. They continued, "You obese slut bastard"; "cocky suing bitch"; "disgusting whore"; "complaining bitch"; and basically "I won't be happy until you're hanging from a tree." It is obviously disturbing that there are people studying medicine who would draft messages like that. They really should not be and I hope the Minister is going to do something about it. The Internet is not a safe place for women, but neither is the world arising from it, and what I have read out is not even the worst. The manosphere has been operating unchecked for years now.”
“People will gather today at 12.30 p.m. at O'Reilly Hall in University College Dublin, UCD, in what I anticipate will be one of the biggest protests there has been in UCD in decades, and probably ever. I do not know. I do know that everyone in the college and in other colleges is talking about what happened to a medical student. This is not removed from what we are discussing today. Does the Minister seriously think the rise of the manosphere has no connection to the rise in violent misogyny and gender-based violence? If he believes that, he is living in cloud cuckoo land. Last night, I was surprised that "Prime Time" published some of the horrific messages that had been sent to this young woman that have accompanied the image that was shared of her after she had been drugged and raped.”
“Even something as simple as that is impossible, and in all cases, it is the victim who ends up losing their education. Another student had to do the rest of their degree online but the rapist, of course, continues on with their degree, affecting their mental and physical well-being as well as affecting how they do in their degree overall.”
“I am sure the Taoiseach would agree that the way sexual assaults survivors are treated is a key part of well-being in any country, and we have already seen the battle for people not to have their own therapy notes used against them in court. This week, we are seeing how third level institutions treat victims of gendered violence. I highlighted the medical student who was raped, had image-based sexual abuse used against her and lost her place on the medical course. She tried to get reinstated and, long story short, UCD won that court case against her and are imposing costs. I have spoken to other students who have been victims of sexual assault at UCD. The dignity and respect policy seems to be utterly meaningless - for example, even to have the assailant not be allowed to go into a building where they attend courses.”
“It is very dangerous for a woman late at night or early in the morning when it is dark. People in these areas are suffering. There is also the 40d route. If the Government wants houses built, and we all want houses built, we must have the transport and infrastructure. Dublin West needs massive investment in public transport.”
“I will also mention the other services for Tyrrelstown and Hollystown. The Minister knows these areas well from his time on Fingal County Council. He knows the figures for Fingal. It is the fastest growing area and so on. I do not need to recite the figures to him. Dublin West has never had the transport it needs. It is the most recurring issue that people are contacting me about. It is causing hardship to students who are trying to get to UCD through two- to three-hour bus journeys. The 39 route is like a coffin ship at this point. It just keeps being added to and the journey keeps getting longer. A woman in Tyrrelstown contacted me. She works in Dublin Port. Can you imagine what a feat that is? It is like an odyssey, trying to match up the different connections.”
“Many of the people work there, by the way. I draw the Minister's attention to the impact it is having. There was a very good article in the Dublin Inquirer interviewing people in the area. A woman, Ms Bernie Casey, talked about her 23-year-old son and said it is affecting his work. Some of her son's friends have lost their jobs in the centre because of it.”
“Congestion, drivers, mechanics, breakdowns and all sorts of reasons are given. Is it not some reflection that we cannot get workers to work in these services? As the Minister knows, one of the issues with Go Ahead is that it has reduced conditions compared with Dublin Bus. Drivers were eating their lunch on the side of the road at one point. However, I want to talk about the 238. It is absolutely unacceptable that between 4.2% and 8.2% of the bus journeys on the 238 route are cancelled every week. How can up to 8% be acceptable at any time? The people paying the price are ordinary working people. It is also ironic that they are trying to introduce parking charges in Blanchardstown centre. The 238 is the only bus people in Tyrrelstown have to get to Blanchardstown centre and yet they are meant to be taking that bus.”
“How seriously does the Department take the issue of ghost buses or cancelled buses? In the first six months of last year there were 6,000 complaints to the NTA in Dublin about this. Those are just people who get the strength to make complaints. This is causing real problems in my area, particularly with the 238 which is an absolutely infamous ghost bus. The people of Tyrrelstown are losing their jobs and losing their livelihoods. They are ending up late for work and late for school. It is having a huge impact on people's lives. What are the repercussions from the Department for the operators?”
“To clarify, obviously, I would love us to continue talking on this Bill for as long as possible. My comment was in the context that we had a guillotined Bill. I have spoken in many debates before where we judiciously picked and chose what we were going to try to be allowed to reach in the context of a guillotined Bill. It was just a bit of a silly comment. We have an hour and a half left and I just made the point that there were other things. I do not know if it is a good idea to be voting for maximum payments for homeless accommodation or for asylum or IPAS accommodation. I do not think that Sinn Féin would introduce this for homeless accommodation, for example, and there is profiteering in that as well. I just think it is quite a dangerous one and we should be moving to a nationalised sector and the State providing this in any case.”
“There is very racist stuff coming up here that we would like to reach but all of the discussion in the last few hours has been about this issue. I cannot agree to a limit per person per day. You could very easily end up impoverishing people and leaving them living on subsistence payments. It is a very dangerous power to give to the Government.”
“There are quite a lot of things that people would like to get to, such as family reunification, warrants and powers. There is a whole load of stuff here. Sinn Féin is the biggest Opposition party. It has all the TDs. If it wants to do it this way, it can. However, I ask the Sinn Féin Members to consider that there is loads of other stuff here that really deserves to be aired in the next hour and three quarters but we are not going to reach it because it seems Sinn Féin wants to have a bunch of TDs who can tell people they raised the issues of IPAS profiteering and transparency and all of these things. It is a little bit disingenuous, especially if the Deputies are going to call themselves anti-racists.”
“I did not know I would be the next speaker. I thought there were others. Sinn Féin is advocating introducing a limit per day per asylum seeker. Does Deputy Carthy have any idea how much that would be? It could not be changed for 12 months. That is my reading of the amendment. There is profiteering in a lot of fields. Should we introduce the same amendment in terms of homeless accommodation for Irish citizens because there is profiteering in that area as well? I am a socialist. I call out profiteering all the time. I advocate for multinational corporations paying more in corporation tax than they are paying. No other party in the Dáil agrees with that but profiteering has suddenly been of central concern for the last several hours, although just on the issue of international protection. Does Deputy Carthy not see a problem with that?”
“These statistics were provided by the Red Cross. I debated this with Sinn Féin's housing spokesperson on RTÉ radio. There is an implication that refugees are affecting the housing market. That has been said lots of times. It has been said about Donegal. They are not. Sinn Féin needs to point out the source of the housing crisis. It is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael handing things over to vulture funds. We should not blame minorities.”
“We have had debates here previously about supports for Ukrainians being reduced and I also participated in a debate on the radio about that issue. We know the position of different parties in the Dáil. Sinn Féin thinks they are affecting the housing crisis. The statistics came out and showed that most of the people who were taking Ukrainians into their homes were not landlords and would never be providing accommodation.”
“I am sorry; Deputy Doherty did not blame Ukrainians. Donegal has also suffered massive emigration so it could do with people coming in, but only if the investment is put in. However, Deputy Doherty never mentioned that. He never mentioned that communities could get together and demand massive investment if IPAS centres are provided. I did not hear him say that at any point.”
“If you do not take a firm stance against it and if you start using some of the arguments of the far right and racists, you will not fight them off. I think Sinn Féin believes it will and that is why it is doing this but I cannot support this amendment. It is completely and utterly a recipe for the far right to stoke up fear and to grow in every single community in the area. If we looked through the record and counted up the words of most of the Sinn Féin TDs, we would see that they have spent their time complaining. I am not saying there are not issues in different communities and areas. There obviously are but the Sinn Féin speakers' whole thing was just an attack on Ukrainians, blaming them for a great many issues. Donegal has been a deprived county for decades.”
“There are 18 billionaires on this planet who control half the wealth. There is huge wealth in this country that could be used to build homes, to sort out the healthcare system and to provide the schools that we need without scapegoating minorities and people who have fled countries for the most difficult reasons. There are other parties and individuals in here who do nothing but demonise people every time migration comes up. I helped members of the Indian community organise a march last summer following attacks on Indian members of our community. Every single one of them reported a climate of increased racism in this country. All of this feeds into it. It is just very unfair. We have to call out racism wherever it is. I say to those who are meant to be standing on the left that racism is a key issue for the left.”
“Any honest assessment of a leaflet like that in conjunction with this amendment would agree. We have to point to the wealth that exists in this society. This Government has a record budget surplus but it has never used it to resolve the housing crisis. We have had a housing crisis for 12 or 13 years now, since way before the recent migration. Migration has also gone down. I have heard different speakers in the Dáil talking about deportations. Being the subject of a deportation order does not mean a person is a criminal. Some of what Sinn Féin has put in this leaflet is not in line with some of its TDs' views. Some of those TDs have taken up this issue quite well in different areas. However, this leaflet is totally disingenuous stuff. Putting this out in communities just feeds into the whole narrative of refugees being a major problem.”
“The fear being experienced by minorities in this country, people who are working and living here, is not mentioned. None of Sinn Féin's speakers have mentioned it either. If Sinn Féin were to be fair, it would concede that most of the party's speakers have used their time to talk about profiteering and all of the other problems but have never focused on the racism being generated in society. All of the facts and figures show a rise in racism. To be very clear, I primarily blame the Government. Deputy Simon Harris has tried to blame minorities and refugees for the housing crisis. That is pitiable and abominable but it is really not surprising. If Sinn Féin thinks this is going to push back against its supporters leaning into racism, it really is not. It actually just lends credibility to those ideas.”
“There are words that are not mentioned at all in the leaflet. Racism is not mentioned at all in the leaflet distributed in Dublin Central.”
“You could have discussions with different groups and different individuals in a community but to suggest that no IPAS accommodation can be provided for people just adds to the racism and fear that is operating in communities. I have a couple of things to say on this. On its own, this amendment could look quite innocent but I have seen a leaflet given out in Dublin Central that says that Sinn Féin will manage migration. To be honest, the leaflet uses some racist far-right talking points. It talks about profiteering. That is all a lot of Sinn Féin's speakers have talked about. I have heard them several times over the last week talking about people being made into millionaires and about global market forces deciding our migration policy. These really are far-right talking points. It is conspiracy stuff.”
“She is also diabetic and became so ill that she could not be moved. She ended up being transferred to Dublin. What I am saying is that there are real live human beings and families, ordinary people from other countries, in international protection. This just further demonises people. The Government is responding to the far right by moving in a much more overtly racist direction but other parties are also responding in different ways. How to take on the far right and racism is the most important political issue in the world right now bar none. We have to call it out wherever it is. This amendment is a recipe for stoking up fear in communities. We do need discussions and community engagement of some kind.”
“This is a recipe for the far right to build in areas. It is disappointing to see this coming from Sinn Féin. The party knows that this would be a recipe for creating new far right councillors, to be frank. It is not just that, we should have a discussion about community engagement. I have no issue with that because there has to be a level of community engagement. To suggest that this would have to be done before any new accommodation could be provided is adding to the negative feeling around any international protection applicants. I raised a case last week of an international protection applicant. They were people in a local Blanchardstown hotel. They were being moved to Mayo. I raised it with the Minister. To give an example, the woman whose case I raised whose child has special needs actually had a major panic attack.”
“In here last week for several hours, a number of TDs took up the Government on some egregious things that it is bringing in, particularly in relation to children being detained and some really negative attacks on human rights that this Bill represents. Regarding this amendment, I cannot support it as it is currently worded. I do not agree that before any accommodation is provided for the IPAS services that there would have to be this, this, this, this and this. For example, there was an IPAS centre in Blanchardstown. Nobody even knew about it. It was working perfectly well. The people there were working with the Blanchardstown Tidy Towns on a Saturday morning making the village look good. It was an outlet for them. They were trying to integrate into the community. The far right councillor in the area got word of it and whipped up a storm.”
“We all only found out about it much later in life. We did not know anything about them and they had lifelong suffering and torment as a result of what they experienced there. The damage to people's psychological and physical health has not been fully acknowledged at all by what has been given. Once again, the Irish State is covering up its role in past abuses.”
“That is €4 per week and we are expected to think that is okay, bearing in mind the free labour that was done in reformatory schools. A host of things that seem to have been discussed and asked for by the survivors have not been given. They make the point that there are 4,000 other people who are looking for lifelong supports that they still have not got. The Government goes on about one-off payments during the cost-of-living crisis but these are all one-off measures so that they do not exist for other people as well. A figure of €600 per year is an insult and should be looked at again. I pay homage to them for their determination and consistency in raising this issue. I acknowledge once again people who have been the victims of the church-State nexus. First cousins of my mother were in reformatory schools.”
“All the bigwig Ministers are here. A few things have to be stated very honestly. Those four survivors were left outside there for over 40 days and, but for Miriam Moriarty Owens, Mary Donovan, Mary Dunlevy Greene and Maurice Patton O'Connell suffering and putting their health at risk, nothing would have been given. I remember raising this on the floor of the Dáil. I think Catherine Connolly, who is now the President, raised it during Leaders' Questions. I think I raised it during Questions on Policy or Legislation on the same day. The answer we got back was that the Government was not giving into emotional blackmail. I want to clarify what has been conceded to the survivors. I put my glasses on a couple of times to check this. Instead of a pension, they are being given a yearly payment of €600. Is that correct?”
“People are talking about SNAs but there is a huge need for special education and learning support teachers. I want to raise a warning for the Minister of State that parents will not let the assessment of need go. The Government should keep its hands off them because I know the attempt is to dilute what they deliver and it will not be put up with.”
“We should also mark that the Government was willing to break with any sort of integration of students who are coping in mainstream with an SNA, and that it was diverting people towards special schools. That is a dangerous precedent. There is a need for special schools, of course, and I have campaigned for that but I refer to cases where it is not warranted. I also have to flag that secondary education is woefully deficient in catering for people with additional needs. There has been a campaign in primary but we are now getting parents demanding it, quite rightly, because their children fall off a cliff when they go into secondary that they are suddenly okay and can cope with everything. I also want to flag that we need occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and more teachers.”
“They could survive better if they all had SNAs. These SNAs, who are very often women but there are male SNAs as well, are, as usual, treated to insecure jobs, poor pay and moved around. That complete disregard for the work women do in our society has to change. On the 200 schools that got the notice, that was only a fraction because the review was not even finished. Some were going to lose half their SNAs. We have heard the guff about rebalancing support, and the big one the Government was saying on the television was that is "increasing SNAs overall". The population is increasing - of course the Government is increasing SNAs but the awareness of neurodiversity and disabled people's rights has increased massively in society, with more people getting a diagnosis and so on.”
“The circular that has been mentioned in regard to SNAs only delivering primary care needs is not even implemented in schools because we all know that SNAs are used for neurodivergent and autistic students or people with anxiety, mental health issues or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD. I went back to teaching after losing my seat the last time and I could see the importance of having SNAs in the classroom with me. I want to raise something controversial as well. I do not think SNAs should be moved around willy-nilly and redeployed. We should keep experience in schools. In regard to the idea that they will be filing their nails in the staff room if the pupil moves on, there is a massive shortage of SNAs as it is. There are 110 students in primary school in Dublin 15 who were classed as misplaced by the principals in the area.”
“I do not know why anybody is surprised, if they are, at the ferocity of the backlash against this review. You are not paying attention if you were. We had the Green Paper withdrawn after a movement of disabled people. The referendum on care was defeated by disabled people. On school places, we have a had a mini-social movement in this country for the past three to four years, led primarily by women. Anyone who is surprised is ableist and not paying attention. There is an anti-ableist movement out there. Look how this whole building we are in is completely anti-disabled people. The Government saw an appalling vista. It saw the protests that immediately took place in St. John's school in Dublin and I commend those parents. Parents and workers working together is the solution here. I think the Government knew this was finished at that point.”
“Is it good enough that UCD is happy or okay to have a rapist studying medicine but not a rape victim? What can be done to make UCD help this student finish her degree as soon as possible, so she is not further punished for being a victim?”
“The Minister may have heard the case of a UCD medical student who was raped and had image-based sexual abuse used against her. As a result of being raped, she became pregnant. She had to have a termination and missed some of her medical exams due to having to schedule that. She asked UCD if she could resit her exams over the summer but UCD said no. It attempted to make her drop back a year, into the year in which her rapist was also a student. She was then forced to take High Court action to try to stop UCD putting her into the assailant's year. UCD fought the case, won and, two weeks after the second case of image abuse against her, it pursued the rape victim for a couple of hundred thousand in costs against her. She has not been able to continue her medical degree since 2023, as UCD has blocked her from doing so.”
“Patrick's Day and to smile and nod in the Oval Office of the White House at a man who is named in the Epstein files more times than Jesus is named in the Bible. That is the reality, yet there have been no political repercussions in the US whatsoever. The Taoiseach may wonder why I am raising this issue. I am of the view that it should be discussed in every parliament in the world. That is how important it is. Is the Taoiseach going to go ahead and greet-----”
“On the question of the UK and Ireland, Prince Andrew - I will still call him Prince Andrew in order to not dissociate him from the royal family - and the former UK ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, have been questioned or arrested in relation to the widespread international abusive behaviour linked with Jeffrey Epstein against children and young women or complicity in same. The Prime Minister of the UK could potentially be brought down over this. Does it not raise the issue of how seriously violence against women and children is taken in society when not one man has yet been jailed for the wide-scale abuse revealed in the Epstein files? The Taoiseach has chosen to go ahead with presenting shamrock on St.”
“By the Taoiseach's statement during the week, he put the pressure on the players to go ahead, and so, I feel, is the Tánaiste.”
“It is not the World Cup play-offs or anything like that. I want to send solidarity to Joanna Byrne, the first woman chairperson of the League of Ireland. She has been asked to resign because Drogheda United, which happens to be owned by a US multinational, does not agree with her stance that this match should not go ahead. Last year at an AGM, 93% of FAI elected representatives took a decision about Israel and that they should be pulled out. The Tánaiste seems to think it is okay to state something but not to back it up with any action. Of course, the natural thing to do after such a vote is to follow it up with your principles that you will not play against Israel and then to put pressure on UEFA and FIFA, rather than putting pressure on individual players.”
“It is not just about being a sacrificial lamb. Russia was not kicked out of FIFA because FIFA had a moral backbone; it was because a number of teams refused to play. We could be giving a lead. By the way, this is not the World Cup, as the Tánaiste well knows. It is an inconsequential tournament.”
“I will also mention the Israeli women's football team, which made a disgusting propaganda video in 2024 in which players swapped their Israeli jerseys for IDF uniforms. Shon Weissman, who has played for the team, has said that Gaza should be wiped off the map. Manor Solomon has defended the genocide. The children's teams are separated by apartheid by the Israeli football league. Does the Tánaiste think any of that is normal? Does he think that our players should be forced into a situation where they must be play against a team that is integrally involved with oppressing Palestinians?”
“Six Israeli teams currently play in occupied Palestinian territory in direct contravention of UEFA and FIFA's own rules, although UEFA and FIFA do nothing about it, and three of the biggest teams in Israeli football, Beitar Jerusalem, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel, have horrendous histories of racism towards Arabs and Palestinians. A lot of the players who play on the Israeli team are involved in these clubs. A popular chant from Maccabi supporters goes "Let the IDF win and F-U-C-K the Arabs". "Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there." is a chant from one of the soccer teams. Those chants ended in riots when Maccabi travelled to Amsterdam. In its 100-year history, Beitar, the team supported by Netanyahu, has never allowed an Arab to play. Racism is very normalised.”
“I consider it a stain that will never leave me. This will be a stain on Irish soccer and on the young players whom the Taoiseach and, it seems, the Tánaiste are encouraging to participate in this. Does the Tánaiste think the Israeli soccer team is a normal team? Some 1,007 athletes have been killed since the genocide began. Of the 421 footballers who have been killed, nearly half have been children. A total of 288 soccer facilities have been destroyed. In December, just a month or so ago, a football pitch at the Aida refugee camp in the West Bank was ordered to be demolished by the IDF.”
“Does the Tánaiste agree that there is a time to take a stand on sport and that the Ireland versus Israel soccer fixture is exactly that time? We should have a boycott supported by the State and the entire population. We should not be complicit in normalising a team that is integrally connected to a genocide, racism against Palestinians and the oppression of the Palestinian people. Ireland has been in this situation before, going back to the 1980s, apartheid and the IRFU. At that time, Charlie Haughey called in the IRFU and told it that it would be incompatible with the State's interest to participate. I never thought I would be holding Charlie Haughey up as an example. John Robbie, a former rugby player has said: I used to think: did I actually know how bad apartheid was? Of course, I did. I should never have toured. ...”
“Micheál Martin, who is actually the Taoiseach, said Debenhams should do the right thing by its workers and pay the redundancy agreed and that the then Government would do everything it could within the law to support the workers and provide resources to enable workers to secure their rights, entitlements and future employment. He said the treatment of Debenhams workers was "shabby, shoddy and unacceptable". Unfortunately, other workers can still face exactly the same situation. While it is welcome that a partial move is being made for workers in certain situations, we need to protect workers who worked for decades, in those cases, paid into unions, paid huge amounts of tax and all sorts. They did everything right and were treated abysmally by multinational companies who would not even engage with them.”
“The Government legislation did not expand the information provided to employees either, which was cited in subsequent cases the workers took. There was no opening up of the books if a company pleaded it was in difficulty. The payments made under the Social Insurance Fund are often not enough. It is capped at low levels and is part of a regime of minimal social insurance. A number of people who were in power at the time, and who still are, commented. Leo Varadkar said the Debenhams staff were treated "very badly". Damien English said he wished he could, and knew the Taoiseach and Tánaiste wished they could, do more for the Debenhams workers.”
“They have had films made about their strike and their situation. The redundancy payments are important but losing a job is a massive financial upset for people. Workers need a buffer to help them adjust and avoid having to immediately worry about bills. The Government brought forward legislation post Debenhams; however, it was a pale reflection of what was needed and demanded by the workers. It did nothing to bring forward the preferential creditor status and did nothing to oblige companies to engage with workers in good faith - something that did not happen for the Debenhams workers. The fines for breaching the legislative limits around consultation are token. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions called for fines of €250,000.”