Madam, - It is encouraging to hear that the Minister for Transport and the Marine is now proposing a revamp of the present ship registration law and procedures and that he is opening a public consultation process on the matter.
The Minister's announcement mentions the need for any new regulations to address issues about safety and crews' working conditions. Unfortunately, the tradition has been that such regulations do not address some of the most fundamentally important issues regarding crew conditions - such as measures to ensure decent pay levels, proper overtime pay, holiday pay, sick pay, etc.
In any event, there are currently as few as 41 commercial ships operating under the Irish flag and that is all that will be affected by any new registration regulations. There are many other Irish-owned ships, eg those operated by Irish Ferries, which operate under foreign flags of convenience and will therefore be unaffected.
Indeed the majority of Ireland's exports and imports will probably continue to be carried on foreign ships, many operating under flags of convenience, a system notorious for the underpayment and mistreatment of crew. - Yours, etc,
TONY AYTON,
(Retired Inspector,
InternationalTransport
Workers' Federation,
Ireland),
Avondale Lawn,
Waterford.
