Irish Ferries & Bertie 'lets do nothing in the public sector' Ahern

[WizardDr]

I dont really like what Irish Ferries are trying to do.

However from a shareholder point of view the situation is quite stark. They are being eaten alive by other competitors and their operation is fairly inflexible compared to airlines. As in limited number of absolute journeys; high fuel costs etc.

If they do nothing and the company falls into huge losses, would it not be the case that the Directors could be sued for not doing something if it was predictable?

This latest attack by Ahern is his one main weakness. It must be obvious to people that the way Dublin Airport has gone what an 'appeassement strategy' can lead to. We have a health service where again even a blind man sees that unless and until work practices of the doctors and nurses actually changes .. this creaking public sector mess wil rumble on.

He will be able to do nothing but assist the departure of Irish Ferries ships ou of Irish waters. And he is threatening to delay the reflagging. Wonder what happens if they change the companies location?

Had Bertie gone off to Europe, he would by now be Commission President. The job needed him and he would have become the greatest ever Irish man. Instead this muck in the public sector will go on and he will ejected from office by staying too long. Fact: More people die from cancer related illnesses in Ireland than most other European countries. Could it have anything to do with how people work in the health services.

 

[z102]

Isn't the reason stupid management ? A ferry as large as a sky scraper crossing the sea on a route where competition is already strong .Isn't that like flying a jumbo jet from Dublin to Heathrow and wondering why half the seats are staying empty ?

 

[extopia]

Ryanair, Southwest et al have proven that cheap air travel can be both popular and profitable. Passenger ferries across the Irish sea are simply out of date, like a stage coach in the age of the steam train.

Irish Ferries need to find another line of business. They can't survive in the transportation market, whether they hire expensive local labour or Eastern European contract labour. They think they're in the transportation business, perhaps they should look at the leisure business.

 

[WizardDr]

One of the advantages of being a shareholder in a liquid market, is that you can see your shares of management have made a mistake.

I think Eamonn Rothwells article in todays Irish Times reflects Extopia's view.

But if the Directors of the company knowing the predictions, kept this 'afloat' and the losses wiped out Irish Ferry's ..where would the Director Of Corporate Enforcement be.

If any of us were company directors what would we do with the projections?

But this is not the debate that the Dail or RTE or the Irish Times is having, bar the artcle today.

 

[MugsGame]

Competitors on some routes have received state aid from their home countries e.g. Brittany Ferries. The current government were asked to support an EU complaint on this or to support a similar grant arrangement for Irish Ferries. They did nothing. It's a bit late now to claim they care about the workers there.

What Irish Ferries are doing may be distasteful, but it is legal. Irish Ferries' main business is RoRo freight. Passengers are just there to boost profits during the tourist season. RoRo is crucial to our economy. RyanAir can't carry our freight imports/exports.

 

[ubiquitous]

Eamon Rothwell's article in the Irish Times on Saturday contained a few startling points, among them a contention that the average Irish Ferries staff member works something between 21 to 23 weeks a year, while being paid for 52 weeks. Is this true? If it is then both Irish Ferries and the unions have some serious questions to answer.

I'm not surprised that Irish Ferries are now in trouble. They have failed to compete meaningfully with Stena on what should be a popular route to Holyhead. They routinely rip off passengers in changing currency. They are continually forced to abandon sailings even on mildly windy days. Their service is much inferior to Stena. Overall I have found that the overall customer experience in travelling on the Dublin-Holyhead route is extremely unpleasant, even though staff do their best to help.

 

[Humpback]

They are continually forced to abandon sailings even on mildly windy days.

I don't believe that these cancellations are anything in particular to do with the weather at all.

I've noticed this through listening to the traffic and travel reports on any of the national/dublin stations.

I think the primary culprit is the Swift sailings service. I've noticed that the service is routinely cancelled due to "maintenance".

It's made me think that there's so little demand for the service that if they fall below a certain level of bookings, they just don't bother and lump everyone on the long/slow sailing instead.

So, given you're making a booking for a fast service, and you're travel time is multiplied by over 3, how likely are you as a paying customer to avail of this kind of "service" in the future.

 

[MugsGame]

the average Irish Ferries staff member works something between 21 to 23 weeks a year, while being paid for 52 weeks.

ubiquitous, it's true (for crew, not shore staff.).

But it's not as bad as it sounds.

Crew on ships are often rostered one week on one week off. While they are on the ship they are working crazy hours. They do two weeks work in one. So double that 23 weeks to 46. Add on four weeks statutory leave, and two weeks for public holidays and sick leave. There's your 52 weeks. And remember they also work weekends.

A better measure would be total hours worked per year - if you compare that with the average industrial worker, I'd expect the Irish Ferries crew work more hours than average. The Rothweiller was a financial journalist in another life, so he knows how to manipulate the media. But given the way the unions are going on, he has to.

 

[Seagull]

The last couple of times I've been across to the UK, I've done the sums. It was cheaper to fly and hire a car for a week than it was to take the ferry, not to mention quicker and without the risk of sea sickness. That suggests to me that they're more than a little overpriced.

 

[MugsGame]

I think the primary culprit is the Swift sailings service. I've noticed that the service is routinely cancelled due to "maintenance".

The Swift is a catermaran-type ferry. It can't sail in mildly-rough conditions, but the slower ferry can. Stena have the same problem with their equivalent high-speed vessel. I don't think there's anything more to it than that. As for maintenance, at least it's a better excuse than "the late arrival of an oncoming train" or "leaves on the tracks" !

 

[MugsGame]

That suggests to me that they're more than a little overpriced.

No, it suggests they're not competitive and need to cut costs. There's no great profit margin in passenger ferries, otherwise you'd have some low-cost operator come-in and steal all the business.

 

[Humpback]

The Swift is a catermaran-type ferry. It can't sail in mildly-rough conditions, but the slower ferry can. Stena have the same problem with their equivalent high-speed vessel. I don't think there's anything more to it than that. As for maintenance, at least it's a better excuse than "the late arrival of an oncoming train" or "leaves on the tracks" !

I'm not talking about rough sea conditions. I would accept if this was the case for not sailing - though Stena will be less impacted because of rough weather, seeing as it's a bigger boat (though similar style catermaran).

My point is purely to do with the, what seems to me, excessive amount of times that the ship doesn't sail because of "maintenance", and my suspicion as to why this may be the case.

 

[daltonr]

It is a bit rich to have politicians complaining about workers being exploited when a person living and working in Dublin and earning €8000 a year isn't entitled to a Medical Card. A couple earning €12,000 isn't entitled to a medical card.

Would I prefer to be living on Minimum wage in Dublin, or half the minimum wage on a ship with my meals and the roof over my head covered? I know which I'd chose.

I don't like the Idea of Irish Ferries dumping it's staff and replacing them with workers who'll accept lower pay and worse conditions. I also don't like the idea of a company keeping the name IRISH Ferries, while reflagging it's ships to other countries to enable it to get around Irish Laws.

BUT. Until Ireland can make life better for someone on the Minimum wage than Irish Ferries does for people on half that, then we're in no position to lecture.

If Bertie feels strongly about this then let him ban ships from our ports that don't have a suitable percentage of Irish Staff. Or let him tackle the spiraling cost of living and endless new regressive taxes. Let him improve things for low income workers in Ireland so that Irish workers can afford to life on the wages that are required to be competitive without our Neighbours.

We're living in a little bubble here where we think that we can go on charging any price for services, and create any tax we like. This all drives up the cost of living, which in turn drives up the demand for higher salaries. Which in turn drives up the price for services.

Irish Ferries are doing the obvious thing. They've decided to emigrate. Find workers who offer better value for money than the Irish. And our response?
Do we step back and say let's rethink where we're heading? NO. We blame businesses for being "Unethical".

Irelend and the Irish are uncompetitive. We are not the chosen people with some special enetitlement. The world doesn't owe us a higher standard of living. In the end Businesses will go where the money is and money will go where the value is.

We have a pretty well educated workforce. But many low paid jobs don't care about that. We might keep an edge for a while in more skilled jobs, but eventually our neighbours will catch up and our high skill Jobs will follow our Textiles, our Manufacturing, and our shipping jobs.

They only think stopping more citizens of the EU coming here is that they can't afford to live here. So eventually Businesses will start to move the jobs to them.

There are lots of things we can do to improve our situation. But making populist pronouncements about Irish Ferries isn't one of them. As usual Bertie is leading from behind. His finger is on the pulse of puplic opinion but his hand is nowhere near the levers of power.

-Rd

 

[Humpback]

We blame businesses for being "Unethical".

Lets take a small step back here. Whatever the rights and the wrongs are at the socio-political level and much that has been mentioned here, there are a couple of issues that make this action by Irish Ferries the height of shady dealing.

According to what I've heard, Irish Ferries is a cash rich company, and is profitable.

Now, while they may not be happy with levels of profitability (which is their right of course), then they can take action as they deem fit.

However, the manner in which they are doing this is actually unethical, and possibly, were someone to argue the case, illegal.

From what I can find, in Ireland, redundancy is defined as "when a job ceases to exist and the employee is not replaced".

This is not what is happening with Irish Ferries. However, by applying the term redundancy to what they are actually doing, "buying out job contracts" (which I have no problem with anyone doing, if they call a spade a spade", Irish Ferries are taking advantage of the Irish taxpayer by getting back 60% from the government of the "redundancy payments" they are making.

From - The employer's claim for rebate of 60% of the lump sum should be made to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment on form R.P.3 (accompanied by copies of the Redundancy Certificates on forms R.P.2). Rebates are paid out of the Social Insurance Fund.

So, essentially, Irish Ferries are buying out job contracts with a 60% subsidy from the State, with the sole aim of decreasing wage costs - while making a profit on the transaction as well, at our expense.

Whatever about the ins and outs of the people impacted, and low cost labour (and RDs ridiculous assertion that he'd rather live on a boat crossing over and back the Irish Sea), there is a battle here that needs to be fought with Irish Ferries who, in my mind, are totally having a laugh at our (Irish taxpayers) expense.

 

[daltonr]

>there are a couple of issues that make this action by Irish Ferries the >height of shady dealing.

If Irish Ferries manage to get 60% out of the state while blatently replacing the people that leave with cheaper workers then more power to them. They wouldn't be the first to benefit from the stupidity of the Irish State.

Wouldn't we all be better of if the powers that be pulled up their socks rather than wasting time on PR battles.

If they were concealing the fact that they intended to replace these workers, or if they took the money by promising that the jobs were gone and then went back on their word and started hiring cheaper staff it would be unethical. Just because someone sticks their fingers up to you when they tell you something doesn't mean they aren't being honest.

It doesn't really matter if it's Ethical, Moral, or anything else. My understanding is that the issue here isn't the 60% rebate. It's the principle of firing expensive workers and hiring cheaper ones.

Perhaps Berties real concern here is that when it's all over he'll have to explain to people how he presided over a government that ended up having to subsidise this Hire and Fire swindle to the tune of 60%.

Not an easy thing to explain when you've already had to pay for a Nursing home screw up and an E-Voting screwup.

-Rd

 

[Decani]

Must say, that's what initially struck me with the initial reports: announcing redundancy and, in the same breath, saying that they were outsourcing the jobs. That's not redundancy. Couldn't quite make out the logic of how they thought they'd get away with that. I wasn't even aware that the govt helped out with the redundancy payments until it was in the news last week.

 

[DrMoriarty]

Perhaps Berties real concern here is that when it's all over he'll have to explain to people how he presided over a government that ended up having to subsidise this Hire and Fire swindle to the tune of 60%.

Not an easy thing to explain when you've already had to pay for a Nursing home screw up and an E-Voting screwup.

I wasn't even aware that the govt helped out with the redundancy payments.

I suspect (a) that Bertie is wide enough to have calculated the odds on this — 'though I'd love to be proved wrong! and (b) that the voting public's memory, sadly, is short enough for all/most traces of this to have been wiped out by the SSIA feelgood factor, 'tween now and the elections.

The plot sickens...

 

[Sherman]

ronan d john, far from being unethical, the directors of Irish Ferries are merely doing their job.

Directors of any company have as their primary duty the maximisation of shareholder wealth - it forms part of their fiduciary duty to shareholders. Theoretically, they are therefore bound to do anything and everything legal in order to legitimately maximise the return on shareholder capital. Not nice? Certainly, from an employee's point of view. Necessary? If it makes more for shareholders, definitely.

To suggest it is not ethical is wrong - deliberately refusing to maximise shareholder wealth by all legal means would be unethical, as well as negligent and a breach of the directors' duties. Just because Irish Ferries are profitable and cash rich now, does not mean they will stay that way. No company will survive for long (unless it has a monopoly) unless it constantly adapts and changes its business model.

 

[RainyDay]

However, the manner in which they are doing this is actually unethical, and possibly, were someone to argue the case, illegal.

From what I can find, in Ireland, redundancy is defined as "when a job ceases to exist and the employee is not replaced".

This is not what is happening with Irish Ferries. However, by applying the term redundancy to what they are actually doing, "buying out job contracts" (which I have no problem with anyone doing, if they call a spade a spade", Irish Ferries are taking advantage of the Irish taxpayer by getting back 60% from the government of the "redundancy payments" they are making.

From - The employer's claim for rebate of 60% of the lump sum should be made to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment on form R.P.3 (accompanied by copies of the Redundancy Certificates on forms R.P.2). Rebates are paid out of the Social Insurance Fund.

So, essentially, Irish Ferries are buying out job contracts with a 60% subsidy from the State, with the sole aim of decreasing wage costs - while making a profit on the transaction as well, at our expense.

I think Govt sources indicated that the Attorney General has confirmed that the Irish Ferries actions do not constitute redundancies under the terms of our definitions, so they won't be eligible for the rebates. More importantly for the employees, any payments they recieve will be taxable.

 

[MOB]

"More importantly for the employees, any payments they recieve will be taxable."

I have some doubts on this point. I would like to see this legal opinion when published. I haven't had to research this particular issue recently, but from memory, the criteria which allow a redundancy payment to be made tax free do not specifically include that the payment is for a redundancy within the meaning of the scheme of rebates from the Dept. of Enterprise. To the cynic in me, there is a reason why the tax exemption criteria are so loose: the same rules allow relocation payments (almost wholly the preserve of the State Sector) to be made on a tax free basis.