Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

Early this year the MV Normandy with a shamrock and the name Irish Ferries on its side, sat outside a French port where it was not allowed to dock because it was using the equivalent of slave labour. This made the headlines in several EU countries. What kind of message is that to send out about this so-called great economy, built on partnership between workers and employers? This company, when publicly owned, was a standard-bearer, a genuine flagship, and that was in the bad old days. The spectacle of French dockers refusing to allow the Irish ship MV Normandy to dock sends a warning signal and unless we do something about it, we will have to get used to our passengers being stranded and goods produced here not reaching their destinations. We must deal with the fundamental issue of flags of convenience and their consequences.

The 543 workers, most of whom expressed an interest in accepting redundancy — a word that should be in inverted commas — would have been mad to do anything else. They were faced with the prospect of working at half the minimum wage under almost slave-like conditions. The ship is unlikely to be monitored and long-established practices such as international maritime conventions are to be set aside. Any right-thinking person would have to ask himself whether he would work for that kind of money, with poorer conditions, when he is putting his life at risk. Of course they opted for redundancy, but let us call a spade a spade; it is not redundancy but social dumping. I have always understood the term "redundancy" to mean that the job was made redundant and not the worker.

I honestly do not understand why that is not the main issue being addressed by the Government. It is not redundancy. We are told that it is being done because of low air fares, but the bulk of Irish Ferries' income is from freight.

As an island nation, we cannot exist with the practice of flags of convenience. Having considered their background, I am very concerned at some aspects that are not really being highlighted. Standards in countries such as the Bahamas, where this set of vessels is registered, are not those that we require, an example being the requirement for ships to have a double hull. Spain paid the price in 2002 when its beaches were destroyed. Some 58% of all vessels lost at sea in 2001 flew flags of convenience, yet only 23% of the total were registered as such. That indicates that there is a safety issue as well as an economic one to consider in this context.

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