Memo to big business: Stop counting the pennies and show some humanity

IF YOU are going to have a heart attack, you had better pray it doesn’t happen when you are on board one of the Irish Ferries ships. Last week, a Polish lorry driver suffered a fatal heart attack when on board the Ulysses travelling from Holyhead to Dublin. He received assistance from a qualified nurse and another passenger with first aid, but the absence of a defibrillator greatly hindered their efforts.

The man did not survive the crossing. Having a defibrillator on board would have cost this rich company just a miserable 2,500.

We know Irish Ferries is rich because three parties, including the management, are paying small fortunes to buy its shares at present, with the intention of taking control of its assets. The company is valued at nearly 700 million.

A company spokesman said he was “extremely upset” by the incident in which the Pole died. But he admitted also that Irish Ferries did not provide defibrillators because it was not required to do so by international regulation.

But what about commonsense? We have reached a level of medical sophistication that means a massive heart attack need not necessarily be fatal if the right emergency procedures are applied as quickly as possible. We are supposed to have reached a

level of social development that means every effort is made to save the life of a

fellow human when it is threatened. It is why we pay taxes to have hospitals and

ambulance services to rush people to those hospitals when they are seriously ill.

Unfortunately, if you are travelling at sea or by air, obviously it is far more difficult to get a speedy transfer to a hospital. That makes it incumbent upon the providers of transport services to take such actions as could help their passengers. After all, there are lifeboats on board and the chances of having a heart attack are probably larger than that of having to use that escape route during a ferry crossing.

An Irish Ferries spokesman said last week that its staff and crew members were trained to the highest standards of health and safety, but qualified that by saying this meant “normal emergencies” and not necessarily medical ones that are more serious. It said that the “specific, certified training” that was required to operate defibrillators was one of the reasons it had decided not to provide this kind of medical equipment and that “it’s not about cost”.

This is a bit of a cop-out, as well as surprising, especially as Irish Ferries has subcontracted the provision of labour to foreign agencies, putting it at arm’s length from the people who operate the ships on its behalf. This was done controversially a couple of years ago — after most of the Irish staff were made redundant — with the intention of reducing costs dramatically by an estimated 15m each year. Having achieved that, the cost of a few defibrillators would hardly break the bank.

However, as part of the procedure to allow for the replacement of Irish staff by foreign subcontractors, the ships operated by Irish Ferries are registered in countries such as Cyprus. This has created something of a regulatory maze when it comes to the following of rules.

And this is where any sympathy for Irish Ferries ebbs further because it also said it was a matter for the regulatory agencies to set down requirements for specific medical equipment.

THAT shifting of the blame to our Government, which still has some measure of control over standards on ferries into this country, and other governments, is typical of the attitude exhibited by many companies. Even if commonsense dictates something, it won’t be done unless there is a regulation to compel companies to do it. And if there is a regulation it will be met, but it won’t be exceeded, particularly if there is a cost involved.

Irish Ferries may be upset by what happened to its Polish passenger, but if it is embarrassed then its condition was probably heightened to hear that rival Stena Line provides defibrillators on board all of its vessels, even though its regulator does not require it to do so. It has also apparently trained a large number of staff on each ferry to use the medical equipment.

In business there is a tendency to try to reduce costs to the lowest level possible. This is particularly the case in the transport business. Irish Ferries justified its tough actions two years ago by pointing to the price of tickets offered by Ryanair in particular as an alternative way of travelling to Britain and mainland Europe.

It was able to show how its own prices had to be reduced dramatically and how, if it was to make profits, it had to reduce costs accordingly.

Ryanair does not have defibrillators on board its aircraft, I was told this week.

According to a spokesperson, the airline does not need them as its short-haul network means it can easily divert to a nearby airport should a medical emergency arise.

Although a fan of what Ryanair has done in reducing prices to customers — and in opening new routes — it does some things that create bad feeling about the lengths to which some companies will go to make money. If you book a flight with Ryanair you will see something on its website called an “Ins and Wchr levy”. This refers to

insurance and wheelchairs. Ryanair famously had a policy where it charged passengers heavily for the use of wheelchairs at airports — if it had one available. One man brought them to court about this policy on discrimination grounds five years ago and won his case.

Ryanair’s response was classic, if not classy. It responded by putting a 50 cent levy on all tickets purchased to cover the costs of providing wheelchairs.

As the company will sell more than 50 million seats this year, this means it will receive about 25m in revenue for a service that is rarely required. It is literally pure profit.

It is also highly cynical when you consider that the company still limits the numbers of passengers with disabilities on its flights, allowing a maximum of four with reduced mobility. It does so despite a new EU

anti-discrimination law, claiming it is done on health and safety grounds should an aircraft ever have to be evacuated. But as we have learnt graphically this week it is not just the transport giants who act seemingly without humanity. The stories of state-sponsored sheltered workshops at charities and hospitals paying token wages to people with intellectual disabilities, often before selling the products of their labour onto large Irish companies, have been truly scandalous.

Take just one example: disabled people at Peamount Hospital in Dublin received a mere 13 a week for making boxes that went to the multinational packaging giant Smurfit Kappa. The company’s excuse was that it had no control over what Peamount paid its workers. It probably thought it was doing these people a favour by buying boxes that, in reality, the company may not have needed.

But this “it was somebody else’s responsibility” approach should not wash. It’s time many big businesses saw the bigger picture and examined how they operate as socially responsible outfits, instead of focusing merely on the bottom line.

The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm.