Irish Ferries staff on strike over outsourcing plans

The ship officers’ union, Siptu, is in dispute with the firm over plans to crew its services to France with staff from outside of the Republic.

It follows a one-day strike on Thursday, which also affected several services.

The union has called for Irish Ferries to reverse its plan to lay off about 150 workers on its French route and outsource the jobs to foreign workers. Hundreds of staff marched to Ireland’s parliament in Dublin yesterday in protest at the plans.

The union claims the company had failed to negotiate and was seeking to exploit foreign workers on short-term contracts.

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Irish Ferries said outsourcing was “in the interests of safeguarding the long-term operation of the service in the face of competition from low-cost air carriers”.