Tony Gregory (Dublin Central, Independent)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann

condemns:

—the action of Irish Ferries in proposing to sack 543 workers who are on trade union rates of pay and established working conditions to be replaced by vulnerable migrant workers on appalling wages and conditions;

—the strategy of registering ships under so-called flags of convenience to facilitate a regime of exploitation on board;

—the greed driving this strategy as evidenced by the huge salaries paid to Irish Ferries senior executives while the east European workers proposed to be employed would be on about €3.50 an hour, less than half the current legal minimum wage in the State;

—the support which the employers body, IBEC, publicly gave to this strategy of Irish Ferries, thus making a mockery of its claim to be in partnership with workers and their trade unions;

—the hypocrisy of the Government pretending to be critical of the Irish Ferries proposal yet having paid a grant of millions of euro to that company to make 150 workers redundant on the MV Normandy to be replaced by exploited labour; and

—the growing tendency in areas such as construction, the meat industry, hotels and catering to exploit migrant labour at the expense of permanent jobs on trade union rates of pay and decent working conditions;

demands:

—that Irish Ferries immediately abandons this proposal;

—that the Government introduces legislation to outlaw ship owners and operators using flags of convenience to trample on workers' rights; and

—that the Government immediately initiates EU-wide legislative measures to the same end;

supports:

—the right of trade unions to take industrial action to prevent the Irish Ferries proposal being implemented;

—international trade union campaigns to outlaw flags of convenience;

—the right of, and strongly encourages, all migrant workers to join trade unions and unite with Irish-born workers in achieving decent pay, safe and proper working conditions and freedom from victimisation and urges the trade union movement to launch an intensive campaign to facilitate this; and

—calls for an appropriate increase in the number of labour inspectors who should be well resourced to assist workers suffering exploitation and to prosecute their exploiters.

I wish to share my time with Deputies Harkin, Connolly, Catherine Murphy, Cowley, Eamon Ryan and Crowe.

First, I absolutely reject the Government amendment where it states that there is no question of employment rights being in free-fall in this State. It should tell that to the Gama workers for whom the so-called robust State institutions failed dismally to expose that scandal. It must be remembered that it was the same Labour Court that recommended the MV Normandy deal and set a precedent for this new Irish Ferries scandal.

Second, the Government makes reference to the social partnership continuing to contribute but contribute to what? The social partnership will be dead if the employer group, IBEC, continues to support the Irish Ferries executives' strategy of replacing trade union rates of pay with half the minimum wage.

The Irish Ferries workers were given no real option. They either had to give up their jobs or face exploitation. If Irish Ferries is allowed to get away with this assault on the very concept of a job with decent wages and conditions simply to maximise profits, while its executives cream off obscene levels of income, it will give the green light to every greed-driven employer to replace reasonably paid workers with vulnerable and exploited labour.

Most people believed this form of exploitation was in the past. If the Irish Ferries strategy is allowed to happen any Government that stands over it will be seen as acting in the interests of the exploiter rather than as a defender of the rights of the citizen.

See this speech in context