Ex Debenhams workers occupy Henry Street shop

Former Debenhams workers this morning claimed to have occupied the shops at Henry St, Dublin and Patrick St in Cork and are now engaging sit-ins. 

The sitins are in pursuit of a just settlement of 4 weeks redundancy pay per year of service.

The former workers have described the settlement offer they received late last week as an “insult” and have expressed “extreme disappointment” at the failure of Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Enterprise Minister Leo Varadkar to present the workers with a fair offer

Henry St shop steward Jane Crowe, who is also sitting in said:

“To say that we are disappointed with Micheál Martin is an understatement.

“His government have had more than two months now to come up with a fair settlement – they need to do much better than this.”

The Debenhams dispute reached the 150- day mark last Sunday.

Liquidators for Debenhams, KPMG, say they have withdrawn a proposal to provide €1 million in additional funds on top of statutory payments due to its staff in Ireland who were laid off.

This morning, KPMG issued a statement, saying:

“Following the actions of certain people over night it has now become clear that the offer is not acceptable to the former employees and others.

“In light of these developments the Liquidators have formally withdrawn their support for the settlement agreement this morning.

“No further settlement agreements will be negotiated by the Liquidators with the former employees.”