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This morning.
Henry Street, Dublin 1.
Debenhams workers protesting outside the Henry Street branch of the chain calling for government action to save their jobs a day before a liquidation hearing for Debenhams on Thursday. A previous demonstration at the branch was dispersed by Garda officers over Covid-19 fears.
Previously: Do A Bit Of Debenhams
Meanwhile…
Gardai take names of Debenham workers engaged in a disciplined socially distanced protest in Cork. It's low key and the guards seem a bit embarrassed but this is unnecessary harassment. #Covid_19ireland #debenhams pic.twitter.com/rA03xV7bMp
— Mick Barry TD (@MickBarryTD) April 29, 2020
no point wearing a mask if your nose is still exposed
Or standing three inches apart after the cops have moved on
OK, they have a legit cause and right to protest.
What is not legit is to say they were treated badly last week compared to the numpties outside the Four Courts. There were plenty of other groups not socially distancing that day and were pulled up, but I doubt there’s a State conspiracy against nudie swimmers in Dollymount.
Maybe AGS were worried about the reputation of Debenhams, the Debenhams creditors and the appointed liquidator
Big business like
Rather than any COVID-19 spread risk
In the public interest definitely has a different interpretation in Garda HQ than it does in my gaff anyway
What’s the “Irish Staff” bit about?
because they are not shutting down all uk stores ?
I remember finding out I had lost my job on the 6 o clock news. I had finished up only two hours before and had just got home. A colleague called me telling me to turn on the news.
The company had been handed over to Deloitte at close of business that day. I wasn’t even allowed back in to the building collect my personal belongings.
It was a pretty disgusting way of being told that you matter eff all to your employers.
I lost a job by reading it in a lunch time national newspaper- well, The Belfast Telegraph. What was more shocking was that the company accountant was standing reading it with me and even she had no idea.
It later transpired that the person responsible had gone bust four time before, apparently it is very profitable if properly planned, even the tacky art work on the walls was rented- zero assets.
Do you realise that it’s not just the actual demonstration that is problematic (be it at the courts or Henry St) but also the journeys they are making (unless they all happen to live within 2km) and any other interaction they may be having – buying a coffee, pressing the button to cross the roads, pushing open doors, etc.
There are others on the street in the photographs. I take it they are all being questioned by the Gardai? Do the Gardai buy coffee?
Seriously Cian- just give it up.
Gardaí community officers will spend years trying to build relations with the citizenry again because of this stupid authoritarian bullpoo.
I’ve lots of sympathy for them but I’m not sure what they hope to see happen here. Protesting isn’t going to make Debenhams any less bankrupt. Its not like the government can force a company to keep its shops open.
I’d always have sympathy for people who have lost their jobs in such circumstances. But it seems your happy for people to be jobless. Ok.
Debenhams is not bankrupt. They plan on reopening many of their UK stores though the number that will not reopen has grown to 11.
They’re in receivership, and currently claiming they’ll reopen “some” of their more profitable stores. Pending how corona goes. The odds on them not going bankrupt are low, given they were teetering on the edge as it was before the giant global recession thats just starting.
Protesting just isn’t going to make their Dublin stores profitable again, unfortunately.
None of that means their Irish employees should be denied their chance to have a say about it
If anything they’re being discriminated against
By both their former employer
And our own police force
Have their say about…what? About the generic public not shopping enough in Debenhams over the last number of years to financially justify the shop staying open?
Its terrible they’ve lost their jobs, but they really need to move on sooner rather than later for their own sake – all this is doing is wasting their own time, and potentially exposing them to corona.
I think its a bit wider than that tbh Zeb
Overseas Giant Retailers dominating our main streets
Acquiring Irish Goodwill and then letting them go stale while they focus on their own home markets
Are Dunnes the last of the original Irish Families in the Big Store space?
Look at it another way, giant retail spaces now empty
Some on some of our major thoroughfares in fairness I couldn’t give hoot about Blanch
Like look at Cork, the original Roches building on Pana
I’m not happy that’s going to be boarded up
I’m also thinking about the role Irish Retail Workers have played in our society
And how the wider world see’s us
Like the Dunnes Stores workers back in the day of Apartheid
Interfering with this protest is a shabby way to observe that legacy
V, if the store on Patrick’s St is boarded up that’ll be done by the Roche family that still own it. Debenhams only leased it as, I think, was also the case in Henry St.
“Like the Dunnes Stores workers back in the day of Apartheid”
– what in the name of the blue-blazes does a shop closing down due to lack of business have to do with Aparthaid…
The value and importance protests by Irish Retail Workers have had
Its not really wider, though, is it – they’re protesting to get their jobs back, not for some moral crusade. And this just won’t happen, because the store wasn’t economically viable before corona, and its a hell of a lot less economically viable now.
My point is that given that, theres just no point in the protest . Its not like workers from a still viable store protesting for better pay/conditions – those protests have an achievable end goal. This protest unfortunately does not. Its protesting for the sake of protesting. And doing it at a dangerous time to do so, for health reasons.
Well if its important to these newly redundant workers, who are also considered to be essential workers btw,
then it should be important to others
Me anyway
Let them have the street to have their say
Its not costing anyone anything
Not Debenhams or their Creditors
Or the Gardai
Or other retailers
“they’re protesting to get their jobs back”
no, they’re protesting about the redundancy terms
It’s awful that they lost their jobs and they aren’t getting a decent redundancy. But
“Let them have the street to have their say
Its not costing anyone anything
Not Debenhams or their Creditors
Or the Gardai
Or other retailers”
No. If we need to be in lockdown then we need everyone in lockdown.
If you think that protesting is an “essential service” then can we all protest? Are the GO’D and Waters protesters valid? Can I start a protest march down Dun Laoghaire pier on Saturday against lockdown?
I was out for my daily walk and noticed that the roads seem to be busier today than last week.
You cannot, cannot complain re the righteous commentator on here. Otherwise you are a fool, or barking, or wrong etc. If people don’t shop in a store, it goes bust unfortunately. But if you want to save the store you shop there. V or V 19 or whatever name you want to call yourself, when did you last shop in that store?
any idea where bank of Ireland come into it?
I was a bit perplexed by this, also.
along with barclays, silver point capital and another group i don’t remember the name of, bank of ireland owns debenhams