Mr. Ken Fleming:

I thank the Chairman and everyone else who has bothered to attend. Like the MRCI and Ms Ryan, I have reams and reams of case examples. Thankfully, I now do not have to go into them but I will speak about one case that took place on 28 April later in my presentation. Unlike the MRCI, I have been involved in this since 2008. What shocks me is that I have been a film star in the fishing industry and the maritime industry for the past ten years and I used to say to my wife I would break the story the next time I appeared on television, but the reality is that we have campaigned for the past ten years in every single Department, through Minister after Minister, and have achieved nothing. We have had reams and reams published in the Irish Examinerand all the national newspapers, two occasions on "Prime Time" and many pieces on the "Six One" and "Nine News", resulting in just a one-day sensation.

It took publication in The Guardian, an international publication, to force the Minister at the time, Deputy Coveney, who must be complimented for doing something and introducing the permit scheme, to take action. However, if one takes the time to go back through the RTE archives, one will see Ken Fleming standing outside his door in January 2016 saying I do not believe that the boat owners, with whom I had engaged through 2008, 2009 and 2010, believe or understand that with the permit scheme comes a whole raft of legislation. The most important at this time is legislation on the national minimum wage, which then stood at €9.15. I was asked by the interviewer that day whether I thought the boat owners would pay it and I said it absolutely would not happen, and I have been proved right. I went on to say I feared - and my colleagues on my left have heard me say this a number of times - that we would legalise slavery, which is exactly what we have done. Neither Deputy Coveney nor anyone else involved in the Departments at that time had any idea that their efforts on the day would reduce what has been described as a work permit - although we all know what it means - to nothing more than a dog licence. I have seen dogs treated better than what I have witnessed in the past two years in particular in Ireland. It shames me to say I am Irish.

I also remind the committee that Senator Gerald Nash, who was the junior Minister at the time, was good enough to attend a meeting in his constituency on 6 December 2016 which 42 fishers attended. I will repeat what Senator Nash himself said. He said it is clear the permit scheme is not working and he expressed some shame that he was part of a permit scheme that led to the working conditions that currently exist in this country.

I have been described as a fantasist. I am currently subject to threatening letters from the industry for defamation. The Guardianhas been sued. The Irish Examinerhas received a letter of intent to sue for defamation. An Garda Síochána has been reported to GSOC. It seems we are all wrong. Then let us consider the efforts of the State. The Marine Survey Office will not talk to the Garda. The Marine Survey Office is the principal policing and enforcement agency in this field.

The Marine Survey Office had to be dragged into the office to sign the memorandum of understanding, MOU, because it did not fit well with the individual responsible for running that particular office on behalf of the State.

The National Employment Rights Authority, NERA, not the WRC, were charged with responsibility of enforcing the legislation in the industry. The individuals who were charged with the responsibility of enforcing the legislation in the industry were the same individuals with whom I was communicating in 2008 to 2010, inclusive. This is borne out in my files and yet this State for some weird reason decided that those same people who have presided over the industry for such a long time, working in NERA, somehow were going to turn some magical trick and change the way they have been operating for the past ten years. Sadly, I have been proven right, because they have discovered that out of 68 boats that do not comply with the legislation, 30% of those boats had no paperwork and yet, like speaking to a child, they tried to tell me that they had a list of breaches and of non-compliance - no payslips, low wages, non-payment of wages, long hours and bad treatment, which statistically represented X amount. We asked them, in respect of the 30% of boats that do not have paperwork, how it was possible to determine what breaches had actually taken place. How could they say, in their presentation to the Santa Marta Group last Monday week, that they have issued 200 permits when, on drilling into the figure for 2017, they have given a figure straddling two years? The one thing members will understand is that on the night of an election, one always look for the valid poll because that determines who gets elected and who does not. The valid poll in Ireland stands at 42 permits at present. There are only 42 permits today in existence today for an industry that has more than 1,500 migrant workers. Yet the only thing I see on the legal front is invitations to migrant workers to call to the local police station to discuss how best they can be escorted to the airports and run out of the country, while no action has been taken against the owners of the boats from which they have been taken.

We have approached every single political party in the Dáil. We have been to the European Parliament and have met the MEPs. The attitude quite simply is that everyone on this side of the table is wrong and the poor boat owners are getting bashed by the State. The reality of what is happening to these individuals is that for them, a work permit is akin to a dog licence. I am told by boat owners that they look after their crew, that they shop in Lidl and buy tons of food. They invite me to look in the back of their jeep or in the fridge. A boat owner will tell me that a crew member had dinner with his family last Christmas but so did the dog. We have allowed the industry to drop to a bottomless pit so far away from what we would class as reality that they will tell a trade unionist that this is justification and that they are good men.

Let me describe an incident. A man from Ghana aged 51 years of age was working on an Irish-owned vessel, 142 miles off the coast of Ireland. He hurt himself on the Sunday night, having joined the vessel on Friday, 28 April. He insisted that he had to go to bed because he fell through a false floor in the hull of the boat. He went to bed on Monday night and he was assaulted on Tuesday by the boat owner, who insisted he should somehow resurrect himself from the bed and go back to work. That was not possible for this Ghanaian guy - who incidentally has a stamp 4 document and is entitled to be here and to be treated correctly - and he remained in bed until the following Sunday. He made his way to the wheelhouse and pleaded with the owner to get him off the boat because he was in excruciating pain. The boat owner hit him again and sent him flying down the stairs and exacerbated his injuries. He took to the bed for the second time. On the Monday, an officer of the Irish Naval Service boarded the vessel on a routine inspection. The next part of my story is borne out by the statement from that officer, who met the Ghanaian crew member, who pleaded with him to take him off the vessel. He told the man that the Naval Service vessel was not fit for that purpose. The captain of the Naval Service vessel spoke to the owner and captain of the vessel in question. The Irish owner-captain of the vessel agreed that he would take the man to port immediately. The Naval Service officer was satisfied that he would be taken to port. At 3.30 a.m. on the morning of 8 May, in seas that were not conducive to what was about to happen, this man was taken from his bed and was brought to the front of the boat. The remaining crew members, all of whom were non-nationals were standing there and he was put into a survival suit and dumped over the side of the boat. The boat owner called to his other boat that was in the vicinity and told it to come and pick up the black B. The crew of the second boat reached him, picked up a rope that was tied to his waist, got him ashore, brought him to Castletownbere and sent him on his way. He went to the Garda station and the gardaí told him he was a fine fellow and was lucky to be alive. There was an altercation between him and the gardaí. As he was entitled to be in Ireland, unlike others he did not fear denunciation and the other stuff used against migrants on a daily basis. He stood his ground. He was told to go to Bandon because Bandon was the closer station to where the incident took place. He telephoned Bandon and Bandon Garda station told him to go back to Anglesea Street, make the statement and have it faxed to Bandon. Luckily somebody in the area, an employee of the State, told him he should get in touch with Ken Fleming. When the Ghanaian rang me, I was able to go straight down and check it out. The incident was entered into PULSE and the garda went off to do what he does best - whatever that was - but it was not in the interest of this poor man.

I engaged a very high-profile law firm because I did not think I was capable of handling this and we bullied the gardaí by letter and every other way we could for them to carry out an investigation. That investigation has now concluded. It is clear the man was put into the water. It is clear that he was injured and it is clear that it was unsafe to do what was done. It is clear that a rope was tied out of his back and it is clear the other boat took him up. It is clear that the Naval Service officer heard him say, "please get me off the boat.". All of that is clear but the gardaí are now claiming the boat was too far out, 140 miles off our coast, which is outside the jurisdiction. My response was that if there was ten tonnes of drugs on it, we would all line up for the cameras, because of this fantastic job of work An Garda Síochána had done, but given that it was a black Ghanaian 142 miles off the coast, they would let the Brits handle it, because the ship was British-flagged but Irish-owned. I am still working between Interpol and Europol. I have been in touch with very sympathetic police in England, who are smiling at the manner and attitude that is being demonstrated by the Marine Survey Office, An Garda Síochána, the Departments of Transport, Tourism and Sport and Agriculture, Food and the Marine, all of which have washed their hands of this.

I am glad this happened because the lad has survived and he has met me. It is like when the families of those who have lost their lives in the past have come to me, in that they got redress for their loss. We do not take any nonsense and there is no wriggle room. Such an incident can take place. Nine men can live in one room in Finglas with no sanitary facilities and urinate out through a window because only one of them is paying the bills. I suspect the aforementioned man with no fingers is living in that room. Photographs can be provided to members of a situation akin to a game dog hunting sheep to the ground by way of a whistle. As Ms Dearbhla Ryan said, when the captain makes a decision that the crew can sleep, they do not go to the bunks. The men fall to the ground in their full oils and sleep on the spot because every minute counts. The maximum time they enjoy from one length of Ireland to the other at any one time is a two-hour rest period. Yet we are paying serious money to the NERA and to the Marine Survey Office to do a job. There are some great people working there, if they were allowed to do their job.

We have a situation where this State is responsible for presiding over modern day slavery. That brings me to my final point.