Vol. 355 No. 11
asked the Minister for Communications the reason the Government approved a preference payment of £66,000 to the former chairman of Irish Shipping Limited as recently reported, thereby preventing equitable distribution of the assets of the company among other employees and creditors of this company.
22.
asked the Minister for Communications if he will outline the circumstances in which he approved the payment of a lump sum of £66,000 to Mr. W.A. O'Neill, former chairman of Irish Shipping; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos 21 and 22 together.
I should like to make it clear that there was no question of a preference payment to the late group chairman of Irish Shipping Ltd. in relation to the liquidation of the company.
When the group chairman resigned at my request, the board proposed payment to him of a lump sum in lieu of salary up to June 1986 when his term of office would have normally terminated. Following careful consideration of all the legal and other factors involved, the Government accepted that the proposal advanced by the board had fewer drawbacks for the company than all others; consequently, that proposal was approved in August 1984.
The decision to ask the High Court to appoint a provisional liquidator to Irish Shipping Ltd. was not taken until 14 November 1984.
Could the Minister tell us if he was aware at the time he was approving this payment of £66,000 to the chairman of Irish Shipping Limited that he intended to put the company into liquidation?
Absolutely not. Indeed, it was only after the appointment of a new chairman that we realised the full extent of the problem. It became very evident because of a report the new chairman made within months of becoming chairman that we had very little choice but to liquidate. I asked the late Mr. O'Neill to resign because among other reasons I was not happy that I was getting full information or totally accurate information. That is not to say that Mr. O'Neill was necessarily in any way keeping me in the dark or misleading me, but he may have been taking an over optimistic view of events and he may have been emotionally attached, given the previous success of Irish Shipping Limited.
When the Minister says that it was not until a new chairman was appointed that a decision was taken that the company should be put in liquidation, am I right in saying that neither the new chairman nor the management of the board recommended the liquidation of the company to the Minister?
That is another question.
It is a very important question. I tried to have a question asked here before the matter was announced at all in view of the seriousness of it.
The Deputy should table a question and he will get an answer.
Is the Minister telling us that a decision of such magnitude as to liquidate Irish Shipping Limited, the first State company ever liquidated, was made in a period of ten days? No such decision was made or, the Minister suggests, even in mind at the time this payment was made, yet ten days later the Minister came into the House and liquidated the company. Is he telling us that that decision was made within that ten days?
No. The Deputy is under some misapprehension. As I said in my reply, the decision on the late Mr. O'Neill's lump sum was taken in August and he resigned in August. The decision to liquidate was not taken until 14 November.
The Minister is making a mistake. He advised us that the chairman resigned in August at his request but the decision to make this payment to him was not made at that time. It was made much later, just ten days before the company was liquidated.
No, that is not correct. One reason that we had to pay Mr. O'Neill a lump sum was that there was some difficulty in getting him to resign. He simply would not resign until terms were fixed. As I said in my reply, the Government accepted that the proposal advanced by the board had fewer drawbacks for the company than all others. Consequently, that proposal was approved in August 1984 and it included the agreement to pay Mr. O'Neill's salary until June 1986 when his term of office as chairman normally would have run out. He was paid salary up to June 1986 and that was decided in August 1984.
Does the Minister intend to apply the same generous terms to other members of the staff of Irish Shipping Limited whom he praised in his statement announcing the liquidation? Over the years those employees have served Irish Shipping Limited well. They and their families are the victims of these developments over which they had no control and of which they knew nothing. Does the Minister intend to see that they are treated as generously as the chairman of the board?
I think the whole House will be unanimous in feeling a great deal of sympathy for the employees of Irish Shipping Limited. Very seldom has a workforce been the victim of events less justifiably than in this case. Unfortunately, we are bound here by bankruptcy law, with which I know Deputy Mac Giolla will be familiar. It is not possible to give any preferential treatment to any one creditor over another. The Deputy will be aware that employees in a bankruptcy situation are creditors for whom legal provision is made. We cannot go beyond that legal provision.
Would the Minister be favourable to such treatment for the employees when all the liquidation business has been cleared up?
The Deputy will understand that there are legal and financial constraints as well as other sensitivities in this matter. Everybody here sympathises fully with the plight of the workers of Irish Shipping but we are not in a position to help because of those constraints.
While agreeing that there are legal and financial constraints, there are also moral obligations. The Minister will have the support of the House if he tells us now that the Government will accept responsibility for the people who have been caught in this trap in a wholly State owned company.
Unfortunately, I cannot give the sort of assurance for which the Deputy asks.
We have a responsibility to those people.
