The Marine Casualty Investigation Board has recommended that the Minister for Justice should consider carrying out an audit of the crewing arrangements of any fishing vessel or vessels to ensure non-EEA crew are compliant with the rules governing work permits.
It also says the minister should also ensure there is a robust system in place to ensure those given permits have a sufficient knowledge of English to be able to communicate with fellow crew on board Irish registered fishing vessels.
The MCIB recommendations have been made on foot of its investigation into the circumstances surrounding a serious leg injury sustained by a crew member on board a vessel, the John B, off the east coast in July 2020.
The incident occurred when the crew’s leg became trapped between the centre weight and the weight retaining cage at the stern of the vessel during a prawn fishing operation on July 17th, 2020.
The load was adjusted allowing the injured crew member to extricate his trapped leg from the grip of the centre weight, and other crew provided first aid.
The owners were informed, the vessel steamed to the nearest port, Howth, and the man was taken to Beaumont Hospital emergency department by private vehicle.
No external medical or emergency assistance was sought or requested by the skipper or the owners, the report notes.
The report concludes that no risk assessment for hauling the nets was shared with the crew, and some were employed without mandatory training.
It says the skipper was “inexperienced on the vessel and relied on his crew to recover the gear unsupervised, while he remained in the wheelhouse”.
It says evidence from the skipper asserting that the crew member had been warned about the dangers of standing on the weight while recovering the fishing gear, but continued to do so, “is not supported by any detail or any other evidence”.
It also says this assertion is denied by the casualty.
It says the design and layout of the fishing gear on this vessel was poor, making communication between the winch operator and deck crew difficult.
It says the winch operator could not see the crewmembers feeding the nets on to the reels, and clear lines of communication were also not in place, given that the winch operator could not see the crewmembers feeding the nets on to the reels.
“ Had there been a safe design and planned effective communications in place effective supervision could have been adhered to,”it says.
“ Communications in general onboard the vessel was hampered by a language barrier between crewmembers,” it says and there was a dispute over the number of crew on board during the trip.
The MCIB says it “appears to be the more probable case on the basis of the evidence available” that the crew comprised five and the skipper on the trip in question, and not the normal crew of six and the skipper.
“One man less in the crew complement can of course increase the fatigue factor and also increase the workload on the remaining crew,” the report says
“In addition, there is the issues as to appropriate manning for particular operations. The Working Time Regulation records provided raise some issues as to how many of the crew were working on the operation of deploying and recovering the nets on the day in question,”it says.
“Given the experience of the crew, the nature of the operations and the nature of the trip, a crew of six and a skipper would have been more appropriate on the vessel,” it says.
Once the incident occurred, given the seriousness of the injury, the skipper should have contacted Medico Cork through the Coast Guard Radio Station for advice and arranged safe evacuation to the hospital, but this did not occur, it says.
“ The owners and operators of the vessel did not comply with a variety of legislation in place governing operations and safety of the crew of an Irish registered fishing vessel,”it says.
“It has not been possible to determine definitively who was the employer of the casualty or the other crew members at the time, given the lack of documentation,”it says, and there is an issue with determining the owner.
“ It is essential on any fishing vessel to have clarity on ownership and on the employer given that the regulatory regime imposes duties on owners and on employers,”the MCIB says.
The vessel was submitted for decommissioning, and the report makes a number of recommendations addressed to the registered owners, to the Minister for Justice, Minister for Transport and Bord Iascaigh Mhara.
The full report and recommendations are on the MCIB website
