‘We are on red alert’

“I really hope that it's not going to be Christmas, but we won't be giving in if it is.”

The words of a very cold and equally defiant Valerie Conlon who spent all of Tuesday night guarding entrances to Debenhams on St Patrick Street after a tip off suggested KPMG would allegedly be attempting to seize stock.

Ms Conlon and other former Debenhams employees will spend the rest of the week being especially vigilant after stores in Limerick and Tralee were each subject to attempts by KPMG to remove stock.

“We got a bit of a tip off that they were going to hit all stores last night, but they didn’t in the end. We are on red alert for the week,” Ms Conlon told the Cork Independent on Wednesday.

Temperatures plummeted on Tuesday night, but it didn’t stop dedicated former employees rallying to prevent a potential KPMG stocktake.

Ms Conlon said: “It was freezing. If you saw the amount of layers I had on. I'm usually a size 10/12, but I look like a size 14 with all the layers. It's just so cold.”

According to Ms Conlon, certain stock items are packed and ready to go within the St Patrick Street site, including cosmetics.

She said she hopes she and her colleagues won’t be forced to stand watch over the Christmas holidays, but they will if they have to.

“Micheál Martin said that he is trying to help us and get in contact with a mediator. We just need to give him time. It's going to take time,” she said.

It comes seven months into the former employees’ struggle for a just redundancy settlement, and exactly one month before Christmas Day.

Meanwhile, in Limerick former staff managed to prevent KPMG from entering the premises there.

Aisling O’Gorman, former employee of the Limerick store said: “Just after 1am security hired by KPMG arrived at the scene and cut the chains that were securing the gate into the loading bay. An unbranded truck with a Dublin registration arrived at around 4am but we had gathered enough colleagues and supporters to prevent them taking any stock.”