Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I wish to share time with Deputies Sargent and Boyle.

Are we to stand idly by as slave ships dock in Irish ports, twiddling our thumbs on the quays of Rosslare and Dublin Port as young, foreign, vulnerable workers slave 12 hours daily, seven days a week, on board ferries operating on the Irish Sea and on the routes between Ireland and France? The Government is standing idly by. Tough talking from the Taoiseach is worthless if neither he nor any of his Cabinet colleagues are willing to take action. It will mean nothing to workers like the Latvian crew member on the Irish Ferries ship, the MV Normandy, Ms Oksana Karamjana, who had the courage to speak out on "Prime Time" about her three-month contract working seven days a week for 12 hours per day with no holidays and no days off.

There will be no change where there is no will to change. There have been many times in history when people could have stood back and made excuses. Slavery would not have been abolished. Child labour would persist in Ireland and Europe, Universal suffrage would be but a pipe dream. However, some people had the courage, will and sense of social justice to change those things for the better, to fight for what was right and to make the case for those less able to make it for themselves. They had a sense of justice that this Government clearly does not have.

The members of this Government who shrug their shoulders in the face of the ongoing march of worker exploitation clearly have no empathy with the exploited workers. The Government amendment to the motion before the House tonight includes a line calling on Irish Ferries "to reconsider its proposal to outsource employment on its Irish Sea routes and to examine alternative viability options for these routes". Is that the totality of the Government response? Are we to bow to the will of parasites such as the chief executive of Irish Ferries, Eamonn Rothwell, who creams off in one hour what it will take the new agency workers two and a half weeks to earn?

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