Irish Ferries workers vow to resist outsourcing

Workers at Irish Ferries have vowed not to stand by while their jobs are "outsourced" to cheaper foreign labour.

Union representatives are meeting in Dublin today to discuss the company's plan to shed150 jobs on its Ireland-France route due to falling traffic.

Irish Ferries has offered the workers a voluntary redundancy pay-off or redeployment to other firms, but they are expected to reject the offer.

Speaking ahead of today's meeting, SIPTU spokesman Paul Smith said: "This is an Irish shipping company. This was B&I, a semi-state company which was given to Irish Ferries on the basis that this company was going to maintain and provide long-term jobs for Irish seafarers.

"If we were to allow this to happen [lay-offs], we would, in effect, have an island nation which would be devoid of seafarers very, very quickly."