Taxpayers face €6m Irish Ferries labour bill

THE taxpayer is being forced to contribute as much as €6 million to the €33.2m bill run up by Irish Ferries in its decision to make 447 workers redundant and replace them with cheap labour.

The State is obliged to give the ferry firm a rebate as its redundancy payouts were above the statutory minimum of two weeks’ pay for every year served.

The decision also means workers — who got up to €300,000 in payouts each — will not have to pay tax on their redundancy settlements.