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Displaying items by tag: Future Concerns

Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast reports BBC News, can only survive until the end of the month without a deal, Unite the Union has said.

The business has been up for sale amid serious financial problems at its Norwegian parent company.

Trade unions have been hoping that the yard could benefit from plans to build more Royal Navy ships in the UK.

But now fear there is a risk that it will not survive for long enough to participate in that.

Susan Fitzgerald, the regional coordinating officer with the Unite trade union told BBC News NI's Evening Extra programme that if the yard the government needs to step in.

The yard employs around 130 people and specialises in wind energy and marine engineering projects.

It is also part of two consortia which are bidding for work on the Navy's new Type 31e frigate.

For more click this link.

Published in Belfast Lough

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago