‘We’ve all worked there, more or less, our whole lives. It was just like a family. We were all absolutely devastated.’
LOCAL SuperValu workers were left shocked and upset after they turned up for work last Friday morning to be told they were out of a job.
The Stockwell Street premises closed its doors after SuperValu said it was ‘no longer sustainable.’
They thanked the staff members for their dedication and say that a consultation period will now commence. There were 24 people, full and part-time in employment at the store.
The company say that trading conditions at the store were difficult for a long period.
‘ This has come as a bolt out of the blue for the staff, many of whom I met on the morning,’ Senator Ged Nash stated. ‘ They were not afforded the basic courtesy of consultation in advance of the company’s decision to close the doors. They have been left high and dry and we have yet to be informed as to who is acting as the provisional liquidator so the staff can receive the documents they need to make claims to the Department of Social Protection.
‘All they will be entitled to receive under current Irish law for their years of hard work and loyalty is basic statutory redundancy of two weeks per year of service.
If Minister Mitchell O’Connor had changed the law, as we have suggested and has been recommended in the Duffy- Cahill report which has been sitting on her desk since May, then the workers in Drogheda would not be in the situation they are in today.’
Among other measures, the expert review proposed an automatic entitlement to a 30 day consultation period for all collective redundancy situations – including in the context of insolvency.