#Fishing - Rules introduced to regularise migrant workers in the Irish fishing industry are still not working, according to the Irish branch of the International Transport Workers' Federation.
As RTÉ News reports, ITF Irish co-ordinator Ken Fleming said the Atypical Working Scheme for non-EEA fishing crew was not ensuring the protections it promised — as news emerged last week of four Ghanaian fishermen allegedly trafficked into Ireland after paying for what they believed were jobs in the UK.
Fleming said of the men’s work contracts: “[They] didn’t have any of the normal inclusions … that you would expect. But moreover, [the men] had no legal entitlement at all to be in the south of Ireland.”
Fleming’s comments on the Atypical Working Scheme echo those made in February last year by Senator Ged Nash, who called on the Government to replace the scheme launched in February 2016 in the wake of an investigation by the Guardian newspaper into exploitation of migrant workers in the Irish fishing fleet.
This time last year, a report from the Workplace Relations Commission said more than a fifth of the Irish fleet employed undocumented workers in 2016.
RTÉ News has more on the story HERE.