Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

On the back of years of campaigning, principally by the International Transport Workers Federation, ITF, the situation for non-European migrant fishers working on Irish-flagged fishing vessels has improved in recent months. A highly restrictive atypical work permit scheme has been abolished and all documented fishers and a significant cohort of undocumented fishers have obtained stamp 4 visas, giving them full labour market access. Those who choose to remain in fishing ought now to be able to earn a share of the catch on an equal footing with their Irish and European crewmates. Future non-European crew, if required, will have to be recruited on one of the more advantageous Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment work permits, guaranteeing a minimum of €30,000 per year, almost 50% more than the atypical scheme minimum.

This is all welcome but work remains to be done. Most significantly, the agreement the State made with the ITF almost four years ago to, among other matters, which gives the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, jurisdiction to hear complaints from fishers on breaches of working time regulations, has still not been honoured, leaving fishers as the only private sector workers in the State who do not have an effective remedy for experiencing excessive hours of work or insufficient rest and breaks.

That needs to be sorted out.

This Topical Issue debate concerns the plight of non-European fishers working in Irish territorial waters on foreign-flagged fishing vessels. Two Spanish-owned German-flagged vessels have been detained by the Naval Service in recent weeks - the Pesorsa Dosand the Ortega Tres. The skippers of both vessels have been hauled before Bandon District Court on dozens of fisheries and maritime offences. However, largely forgotten in all of this are the mainly Indonesian crew on both vessels.

The International Transport Workers' Federation, ITF, have given me sight of a contract of one of the crew of the Ortega Tres. These contracts promised them a mere €800 per month and illegally claim that there is no limit on the hours the fishers must work for that €800.

It remains to be seen if these are the same contracts that the German authorities, the flag state, have on file for these crew. I say this because the ITF has shown me a sample of a double contract that Indonesian fishers on the other vessel, the Pesorsa Dos, are on. In these instances, the contracts filed with the German authorities portray the crew on superior conditions that meet German regulations than what is in the parallel contract issued to the crews themselves. In the sample I have, the official contract has the fisher on €2,000 per month but the version given the fisher promises €1,000, although in his case he was not even paid that having been voluntarily repatriated from the State last week without having received a cent since boarding that vessel in late December. Indeed, none of the remaining Indonesian crew on the Pesorsa Doshave received any wages since December - not one cent.

The authorities in the State are aware of the situation. However, Ireland's failure to ratify the 2007 Work in Fishing Convention, International Labour Organization, ILO, 188, leaves the likes of the Marine Survey Office and the Workplace Relations Commission powerless to follow this up.

The review of the now-abolished atypical work permit scheme published last October included a promise that Ireland would ratify ILO 188. The question for the Minister is, when?

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