Passengers allowed off diverted Irish Ferries vessel
Dozens of exhausted passengers were finally able to disembark in Dublin this morning from the MV Normandy, the ship caught in the middle of the spiraling Irish Ferries industrial dispute.
The 113 passengers had spent more than 24 hours on the vessel, which left Cherbourg on Saturday evening bound for Rosslare.
The ship had to be diverted to Dublin after port workers in Rosslare would not allow the ferry to dock.
Their refusal was a show of solidarity with Irish Ferries staff who are fighting against a plan by the company to replace 550 seafarers with cheaper foreign workers.
As they disembarked, passengers said they had been treated well by Irish Ferries but had seen travel plans disrupted as a result of the dispute.
Elizabeth Patera (aged 24) from Portland, Oregon, and her friend Jennifer Hewitt (aged 21) from Idaho, had hoped to spend the last two weeks of their four-month European tour travelling around Galway.
“We’re in the last two weeks of our trip so it’s kind of set us back,” Ms Patera said.
She said the captain had kept them constantly informed and told them because the ship wasn’t being accepted at Rosslare, they would try Dublin instead.
“They fed us the first minute after we were late,” she added.
While the pair have been given money and somewhere to stay tonight, Ms Hewitt said they were upset their plans had been disrupted.
“They just told us we’re going to have to get a train we’re kind of upset, as we only have a couple of days left on our Euro-rail passes,” she said.
Another passenger, Roderick O’Connor, from Dun Laoghaire, said they had been provided with tea, coffee, soft drinks and food during the delay.
But he said people on board the ship were frustrated because they had been travelling for a long time, and added that there was limited information available about the situation.
Also taken off the ferry at Dublin was an injured crew member, who was escorted without making any comment to a taxi outside the company’s terminal with his hand bandaged.
A spokesman for Irish Ferries yesterday hit out at SIPTU, the union whose members were refusing to let the MV Normandy dock in Rosslare, for saying they were allowing it to berth in Dublin for humanitarian reasons.
He claimed they knew the worker had needed medical treatment before the ferry entered the Co Wexford harbour, following an accident on board.
But SIPTU criticised the company for holding passengers hostage and using them as leverage by setting sail from France despite warnings from port staff they would not handle the MV Normandy.
Last night’s events are the latest twist in the deepening dispute between workers and management, which escalated on Thursday when officers barricaded themselves into the control room on the Isle of Inishmore in Pembroke, after security personnel accompanied Eastern European workers onto the ship.
Yesterday SIPTU members also took over the bridge of that vessel, while crews of the Jonathan Swift in Dublin and the Ulysses in Holyhead have prevented their ships from sailing for the past four days.
| Related Stories: |
|
