Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Last week the Taoiseach said Irish Ferries was engaged in sharp practice in sacking 543 trade union workers and replacing them with exploited labour from eastern Europe. Was that not utterly empty lip-service from him as in the past 12 months it has emerged that his Government gave millions of euro to the same company, Irish Ferries, in redundancy grants to do exactly the same thing to 150 workers on the MV Normandy? Can the Taoiseach explain the difference? Where was his indignation then?

The conditions sought by Irish Ferries for their new workers can only be described as semi-bonded labour. They will slave for 84 hours per week, work for months on end with no break and eat and sleep in their workplace — the ship — for €3.50 per hour. That is a mere €3.50 more than the galley slaves of ancient Rome except, I am sure, if we were around in those days, the galley bosses would have saved us guff about obeying workers' rights. The reality is the naked greed evident here for profit from exploited labour places the moral standards of the likes of Irish Ferries somewhere between those of a slum landlord and a slave trader. Yet we are told 95% of all ships in and out of Irish waters have so-called contracted out labour.

Why are ships flying banana boat flags of convenience allowed to ply EU waters with impunity after all the Taoiseach's talk of social charters, workers' rights and the rest of it during, for example, recent referenda? Is the answer that the policy of European big business, supported by governments like the Taoiseach's, is that migrant labour is there to be abused as is happening in front of the Taoiseach's eyes in the construction industry, the meat industry and in many other industries in order to maximise profit?

Has IBEC — the bosses' organisation — not been exposed as the biggest, most blatant user of all flags of convenience called social partners when it obviously has no allegiance to it in backing Irish Ferries to the hilt? Will the Taoiseach introduce legislation to break this cycle of exploitation? Will it be a matter of urgency in this Dáil? Will the Taoiseach bring it to Europe to break the exploitation now rampant in European Union waters of vulnerable workers?

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