Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

Irish Ferries is a profitable company which is able to pay its chief executive an excessively high salary. The company has chosen to reject an independent Sparks and King consultants report on this matter and is trying only to cut costs.

I ask again when it became acceptable for employers to cut costs by exploiting workers. Irish Ferries has approached this matter in a bullying manner, threatening that the company will offer only statutory redundancy and will exit the Irish Sea routes altogether if its proposals are not accepted within the limited timeframe it has set.

Allowing Irish Ferries to proceed with this plan would be this State's most regressive act in respect of workers' rights. For many workers at Irish Ferries, the deal being presented by management leaves them with no option. Who would seriously expect them to take massive cuts in pay and accept the shredding of their terms and conditions to remain with the company? These workers are being pushed out.

Unlike this Government, Sinn Féin is committed to defending and extending workers' rights and to bringing about an improvement in the living and working conditions of all workers. There are solutions to this problem, and it is inexplicable that the Government is not even attempting to pursue them. Last week in this House, my party tabled a motion which denounced the exploitation of workers on board ferries operating under flags of convenience out of Irish and EU ports. It noted that the draft ferries directive was withdrawn in August 2004 following the failure to reach a final agreement at the Council of Ministers. The Sinn Féin motion sought to get unanimous Dáil support for a demand that the European Commission urgently introduce a European ferries directive to combat social dumping on ferries and set minimum labour standards to ensure an end to the exploitation of workers on intra-EU passenger and ferry services.

I understand from the comments made last night by the Minister of State, Deputy Gallagher, that the Government has no intention of pressing the European Commission to bring forward such a directive. His comments clearly illustrate that the Government is willing to trample all over vulnerable workers on the premise that it would be uncompetitive for ferries to operate with proper pay and conditions for workers. If it is uncompetitive for them to pay their workers properly, let them go out of business and we can then establish a State ferry company to serve the people of Ireland and the needs of business.

What is being done in respect of the possibility of introducing a licensing regime for ferries operating out of Irish ports? This is a system that has been employed in other jurisdictions. On the basis of what Deputy Gallagher said in his contribution to this debate last night, I am not sure he understands the import of what is on the way at Irish Ferries. He said it was not for him to seek to determine an independent company's business strategy.

This attitude is the crux of the problem. The Government cannot be a disinterested bystander. It must be prepared at all times to intervene to protect the interests of the disadvantaged and marginalised, in this case the interests of workers who are to be subject to the reprehensible working conditions that Irish Ferries wishes to impose. The Government also has a role to play in preventing the displacement of workers covered by employment agreements. I challenge the Government to abandon its laissez-faire attitude, to have a sense of social justice and approach this issue with the will to resolve the situation and ensure no worker on board any ferry operating out of an Irish port is subjected to exploitative working conditions. I urge the full support of the motion and urge that the Government amendment be rejected.

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