Irish Ferries deal to lay off workers may cost you €7m

IRISH FERRIES is seeking €7 million from the taxpayer to cover the statutory cost of laying off 500 of its Irish workers.

With the company’s bitter dispute with SIPTU resolved, plans to replace 543 Irish staff with cheaper agency crews from Eastern Europe are proceeding quickly.

As part of that process the company this week informed the Department of Enterprise that it is proceeding with its redundancy plan, a large portion of which the company believes should qualify for a Government rebate.

Under the Redundancy Payment Acts, the Government is obliged to repay 60% of the statutory redundancy payment made by any company laying off its staff.

Irish Ferries, which has offered significantly in excess of the basic statutory redundancy, is thought to be paying almost €50m in redundancy to all but 48 of its Irish seafarers. The statutory portion of this would be in the region of €12m, making for a potential refund from the State of approximately €7m.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner yesterday, Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin confirmed Irish Ferries had this week forwarded its redundancy notice to the Government.

Preliminary advice to the Government prior to the receipt of the redundancy notice indicated that the Irish Ferries package may not meet the criteria of the Redundancy Payment Acts.

However, the Attorney General had postponed a definitive decision until he received the precise details of the Irish Ferries plan. A final decision is expected early in the new year.

However, it is widely understood that Department of Enterprise officials have questioned whether Irish Ferries should receive any rebate from the taxpayer since the actual jobs concerned continue to exist and are simply being taken by cheaper workers.

Although Irish Ferries has declined to comment publicly on the matter, the company is expecting the rebate to be handed over since it has already received rebates for similar redundancies on the MV Normandy route.

SIPTU, which has just successfully negotiated the minimum wage for the company’s new agency workers after three weeks of industrial action, has previously said public money should not be used to facilitate “unscrupulous employers abusing vulnerable migrant workers”.

The agreement, which is binding on all sides for three years regardless of whether ships are registered in Ireland, will save the company €11m annually.

Meanwhile, passengers due to travel on the MV Normandy continued to have their plans disrupted yesterday after the vessel was detained at Rosslare late on Wednesday.

The ship was temporarily grounded after inspectors from the Department of the Marine found what were described as several safety deficiencies in its operations.