#Fishing - The International Transport Workers Federation says it will be closely watching the Garda investigation into a Ghanaian fisherman’s claims that he was dumped at sea in a survival suit from an Irish trawler.
As the Irish Examiner reports, the crewman says he joined the fishing vessel at Castletownbere in West Cork earlier this month, and after voicing concerns about working conditions on the vessel, he sustained a back injury on deck that rendered him unable to work.
Some days later, he says a Naval Service vessel visited the boat and inquired about his condition, after which he was told his transfer back to Castletownbere was being arranged.
That arrangement, he alleges, involved him being put overboard in a survival suit and left in the water before he was picked up by another vessel. He says he then made his own way by bus to hospital in Cork for treatment.
The incident was reported on 12 May to Gardaí and the Marine Survey Office, the latter of which confirmed that both the fishing trawler and transfer vessel were inspected by its officials.
The Irish Examiner has more on the story HERE.