Hook, lying and sinker

It’s as if a rotting fish has been dropped on you.  There’s a stink coming from somewhere but you don’t quite know where it is or what to do about it.  It seems that all around the coast Irish fishing ports including Kilmore Quay have trawlers that are crewed by workers who are according to today’s Guardian working as slaves.

They are spirited across the border by exploiting a loophole in British law that allows ships crews enter and pass through the UK for 48 hours without a visa provided their onward destination is international waters.

These workers are from the Philippines, Ghana, India and Egypt. They are not allowed on shore, they are sleeping on craft that are not designed for permanent living, they work long hours for about half the Irish minimum wage, they are deprived of sleep with all the implications that will have for health and safety in the workplace.  Workers passports being held by craft owners and no holiday or overtime payments. This seems to be a significant issue in fishing which skippers and crews that are legitimate have to compete with.

According to the Guardian one skipper in Wexford’s Kilmore Quay, who only employs Irish crew, waved at a West African worker on a neighbouring vessel and told one of our undercover reporters: “You can get one of them for €700 a month. Would you work for that?” Kilmore Quay lands a lot of prawn and whitefish.

Nobody can deny that things for the fishing industry have been tight.  Stocks and quotas are dropping due to more intense fishing effort mean that even with a reduced number of craft in the national fishing fleet, some vessels are still marginally viable.  In the UK the collapse in the fishing industry has been greater than in Ireland. Ports like Hull or Grimsby which were built on the North Sea fishery have seen landing slump.  Irish ports have as many trawlers registered operating trawlers as Lowestoft or Great Yarmouth.  But the notion of a trawler landing in its homeport only is one of the past.  Trawlers will land catch at a convenient port and return to the fishing grounds especially if the fishing is good.

However Irish landings are generally in species in demand on the continent.  The well known brand Donegal Catch uses mostly imported Norwegian whitefish having closed its Roscommon processing facility about 10 years ago.  The cod, whiting, plaice that are so popular on the Irish plate are mostly

imported from other countries already packaged while the prawns caught in Kilmore Quay are frozen for sale to the continental consumer. So landed fish are constantly moving from landed port to market, where ever that market is.  This is not an excuse for what some trawler owners are up to.  It is the environment within which their greed thrives.

In the middle of all this movement, are workers swimming against a tide in a country they know little about.  It’s not the first time exploitation has been revealed in the Irish food industry.  Recently in Donegal a man was charged with trafficking immigrants to work in slave conditions in businesses in the county.  Earlier this year 16 trafficked immigrants were discovered working on a farm in Armagh by the PSNI.

So when the Department of Agriculture says that inspections will take place in ports, there is a small problem in that during the era when Mary Harney ran the Department of Enterprise and Employment, she ran down NERA and its ability to inspect work places and those at work.  With the crew members not recorded on the log there may be little proof if a worker ever was on board a trawler.  Few crewmen are likely to have read the Guardian.  As I write one of the craft at the heart of the investigation is fishing due south of Cork Harbour.  Unless the navy are despatched with inspectors to craft at sea, there may be little chance of apprehending crew before they are dumped by their gang master. 

Fishing is often an industry where there are hidden holds and sharp practice.  Dealing with the abuse given the diminished state apparatus may not be as easy as it seems.  Few are coming up smelling of roses on this one.