Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
Link to this: Individually | In context | 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?

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this Topical Issue. I have been asked to point out that the matter, although important in the area of fisheries, is not the responsibility of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is lead on the International Labour Organization, ILO, and the Department of Transport would be central on the specific issue of ratification of that particular ILO convention given that Department's lead responsibility for maritime safety, manning and working hours on board fishing vessels.

The Work in Fishing Convention, C. 188, was adopted at the 96th session of the International Labour Conference in June of 2007 and entered into force in November of 2017. It aims to ensure decent conditions of work in fishing with regard to minimum requirements for work on board, conditions of service, food and accommodation, occupational safety and health protection, medical care and social security.

Ireland supports the convention and must bring it into force via national primary legislation. A provision will be included in the merchant shipping (international conventions) Bill, which will allow the Minister for Transport to make regulations to fulfil the State's commitments under the Work in Fishing Convention. The general scheme for this Bill is currently in preparation.

In the meantime, Council Directive EU 2017/159 was published in the Official Journal of the European Union. This directive contains a social partnership agreement, completed on 21 May 2012, which aims to implement the Work in Fishing Convention. This directive was transposed into Irish law in full in 2020 by way of several regulations. The regulations covered issues such as manning, hours of work and rest, minimum age, medical examinations, medical care on board, fishing vessel owner liability and repatriation, crew lists, fisherman work agreements, food and accommodation. It applies to all fishermen working under contract abroad an Irish-registered fishing vessel and share-fishermen when working along with fishermen under contract.

The Department of Transport will continue to progress work on the merchant shipping (international conventions) Bill in order to formally ratify the provisions of the ILO Work in Fishing Convention in the near future.

I again thank the Deputy for raising this issue.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Is there a copy of that, Minister?

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

No.

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Is it not an embarrassment to the State that the ITF's fisheries representative in Ireland has to go to his colleagues in Spain, which has ratified ILO 188, and the flag state, Germany, to work on having questions of unpaid wages and illicit double contracts acted upon? One cannot help but draw the conclusion that there is a greater premium being placed on fish stocks in our territorial waters than the rights and welfare of human beings.

Let us be clear, this is an incursion of slave-wage conditions onto the shores of the State. Even generously assuming that the Indonesian crew of the Ortega Tresworks, say, a 40-hour week, that would make their hourly rate €4.40, only one third of the statutory minimum wage. By comparison, future non-Europeans recruited to work on Irish-flagged vessels will have to be on a minimum rate of almost €15 an hour before they get their stamp 4 and graduate to share the catch. We hear a lot about the Common Fisheries Policy, but it is clear we are some way off from a common floor of decent pay and conditions within Europe when it comes to pay and conditions for migrant crew.

If any of the dozens of charges of fisheries and maritime offences against the skippers of those two Spanish-owned German-flagged vessels is upheld in the courts, it follows that the Indonesian crew were coerced into illegal acts by their employer. Coercion into law-breaking activity is an internationally-recognised indicator of forced labour and human trafficking. While such an eventuality will be taken up with the German and Spanish authorities by the ITF, the fact that such practices can happen in Irish waters and, from the point of view of the crew, go unchallenged by the Irish authorities is deplorable. It underlines why the ratification of ILO 188 needs to be put on the agenda of the Oireachtas forthwith.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. He made a clear distinction between the plight of fishermen who are working on Irish-registered ships and those who are working on foreign-registered ships within Irish waters. While progress has been made on those on Irish-registered ships, and the Deputy has acknowledged that, we have not yet implemented the Work in Fishing Convention but it is the intention of the State to bring this into force through primary legislation - the merchant shipping (international conventions) Bill.

I acknowledge that workers who are on ships are uniquely vulnerable. They are often recruited from places such as the Philippines or from eastern Europe, from Ukraine, etc., and they are not in a position to stand up for their rights. They are literally marooned in a situation where they need support and representation and that is why a convention such as this is so important.

The Deputy is doing the right thing by raising this issue. I will remind the two Ministers involved, the lead Minister, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and the Minister for Transport, of the Deputy's desire and their obligation to bring this into law.