Speaking today under promised legislation Deputy Ellis asked the Taoiseach if he had any concerns for the existing industrial relations framework due to Tesco’s stance which led to the present strike.
The Dublin North West TD said ” Workers rights are under attack and attempts are being made to undermine existing agreements and conditions. This strike by Tesco workers is about stopping that company attempts to break the Union. If we allow this all that is left is a race to the bottom.

Deputy Ellis continued ” I asked the Taoiseach to support the workers and if he agreed that others should stick by their own agreements. The Taoiseach replied that he did support workers but he could not interfere in this matter. Which is very unfortunate.
Sinn Féin fully support the Tesco workers in their defence of their working conditions. Many of my constituents work for Tesco and the way in which it has tried to force in new contracts on its employees does not belong in modern Ireland. and the Taoiseach should acknowledge this.”

Sinn Féin TD Dessie Ellis in supporting the anti-eviction private members bill put forward by AAA and People Before Profit in December said:

“We have a serious situation where people are being evicted despite being up-to-date with the rent and being good tenants. A good proportion of these are being evicted as their landlords are selling the property usually to banks or vulture funds. The Government’s ‘Tyrrelstown agreement’ legislates for people with a large number of properties and rightly forces them to pass on those properties on their portfolios with tenants in place. Where is the Tyrrelstown agreement for property portfolios with a smaller number of properties? It’s not there and smaller property portfolios can evict many tenants as they think they can get more money for vacant properties.

“This PMB will address that issue and remove the sale of property as grounds for serving a notice to quit. This is an important point: it is our job as legislators to legislate and for many renters, this is a serious concern which the government cannot ignore any longer. While we support the majority of points in this PMB, there are elements of it which we have difficulty with but on balance this is a good Bill and we will support it.”