Irish Ferries

Dub13

What do you all think about Irish Ferries and there carry on over the last year or two...?I think its a disgrace the way they have found a loop hole in EU law and are paying some workers as little as €1-an-hour.

And this morning some French Union activists have prevented one of there ships from docking in Cherbourg.To think that a Irish company could change its flag and register in another country with the sole intention of exploiting people.

I know I will not be using Irish Ferries again ontill they sort this out.

gandalf

Well I haven't used a Ferry in years but if I ever had to use one in the future this is one crowd I would steer clear of. Shameful and disgusting are the words I would use about them.

ArthurDent

Think they're disgusting - very deliberatley chose to Travel on Brittany Ferries for the past 4 years because of the way they run their business and the state of their ships.
Just back on Saturday from trip to France and was asking some of the staff on Brittany Ferries what they though of Irish Ferries -very negaitve towards them and their working conditions. Staff on the ferry I was on seemed to be very happy in their jobs (many of them I recognised from previous trips) and the service and standard of Britany Ferries much higher than Irish Ferries without a huge price differential - so better service, better ships, better wages and working conditions than Irish Ferries - seems like they have a lot of questions to answer.

rsynnott

It's a disgrace, though they're by no means the only offenders. Oil tankers, in particular, are often registered in countries with minimal labour and safety laws.

Guzzler

While I thought that IF paying the non-national worker €1 and hour was a disgrace, I can fully understand why they wanted to sail under a different flag.

I worked for Irish Ferries on all routes for a summer when I was a student. The main problem that the company had was that it had originally been B&I which was a semi-state company. While I met some really hardworking,well qualified and decent people alot of the staff were absolute wasters who were bleeding the company dry. They were carried over from B&I and because of their seniority expected to be paid top dollar for mopping floors safe in the knowledge that it was damn near impossible to be fired.

Because of the high labour costs and "innefficient" (Read: bone idle ) workforce Irish Ferries had a high costbase and had to compete for cross channel transport with the likes of Ryanair. Their main competitors at sea were Sealink and Brittany Ferries who were both privately operated and sailing under the Union Jack. This meant they had more flexible working conditions and a lower minimum wage.

At the end of the day the cost of travelling by sea and onboard shopping is an absolute ripoff that the consumer had to pay through the nose for. Of course I can't be sure that Irish Ferries will improve the standard of service but they can no longer hide behind profitability anymore.

Personally I'm glad to see them getting up the unions noses. Ireland has been blighted in the past by ex semi-states like Aer Lingus with workers that think they are untouchable. I just wish they'd shove the boot in to Aer Rianta to stoke it up a little.

On a

On a more positive, less bitter note theres a new crowd after taking over a P&O ship doing the Rosslare-Cherbourg run. Its cheaper than Irish Ferries and the food is free. The consumer can be the only winner !