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AT LEAST 10 fishing vessels checked by the Irish Naval Service this year had less than the required number of EU nationals on board.
Standard sea fishing boat licence conditions require that at least half of the crew must be from the EU.
Four boats had more than 75% of crew from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), with one entirely crewed by Egyptians when they were boarded by the Naval Service.
Another – whose last port of call was Kinsale in Co Cork – had 80% of its crew from the Philippines and Egypt, as recorded in two separate inspections of the vessel which took place in May and August.
One boat’s crew changed dramatically over the course of a month, with three Irish crew at the start of March but one Irish, one Egyptian and two Filipino crew members by the end of the same month.
It is unclear from the reports what employment permissions these workers held or if any were undocumented.
This information was compiled by Noteworthy when analysing navy reports of fishing vessel inspections in 2022. These were obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for navy inspection reports that refer to issues relating to migrant workers in the fishing industry.
We were supplied with a full list of all Irish fishing vessels inspected at sea, both those with and without non-EEA workers on board – a total of 117 inspections from 2020 onwards.
These broke down to 18 inspections in 2020, 26 in 2021 and 73 in 2022 – dated up August this year.
During the first eight months of this year, 33 of the inspections listed crew from outside the EEA on the fishing boats boarded by the Naval Service. Of these, 77 workers were from the Philippines, Egypt, Indonesia, Ghana and India.
Another five crew members were UK citizens and were listed as the only non-EEA crew on three vessels. These were not included in our analysis as our HANDS ON DECK investigation focused on fishers who require work permissions.
Less than 10% of the fishing fleet are permitted to recruit crew through the Atypical Working Scheme for non-EEA fishers. This scheme received strong criticism following reports of exploitation and trafficking in the sector.
Through FOI, the investigative team obtained full access to 29 of the remaining 30 reports that listed non-EEA crew, with one refused due to an ongoing case with the DPP.
We found that 10 vessels had more than 50% non-EEA crew recorded in 11 navy inspections. This equates to 15% of inspections at sea of Irish fishing vessels during the period January to August 2022.
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“That will tell you the crisis the industry is in,” said Patrick Murphy from the IS&WPO who represents vessel owners. He said that this can happen when skippers are stuck for crew “and a phone call is made” as otherwise “they don’t have a full complement”.
Murphy said that this is how the problem is solved in Castletownbere. “It’s a practical solution that gets around the crazy law that says – we have to have 50:50.” That law was fine when there were “people in Europe who wanted to go fishing” but “now, there’s nobody”, he added.
“If something isn’t working, you fix it. You don’t just ignore it. But you don’t punish somebody for it being broken.”
The IS&WPO say there is a need for 160 workers in the industry, but a recent cross-departmental review group that examined work permissions for fishers, stated that it was “not aware of any formal analysis, assessment or report… in relation to the need for non-EEA workers in this specific sector”.
Michael O’Brien, fisheries campaign lead at the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) said that “time and time again” they have “been grappling with how many non-Europeans are in the Irish fishing fleet”.
He said this group encompasses those who have come in through the Atypical Working Scheme for fishers – which the recent review group stated numbered 337 at the end of last year.
A further “150 or so that were in the scheme at some time” – with many of those are still in fishing “as we have regular contact” and those who have always been undocumented. That’s “a significant cohort of non-EEA fishers”, he said.
This void may be filled by BIM who has recently completed an analysis of the fishing labour force. A spokesperson for the State agency said that “the final report will be published in the coming weeks”.
This “includes proposals to address the main challenges concerning recruitment and retention of crew in the Irish fishing industry”, they added.
Only one of these 11 vessels with less than 50% of EU crew received an infringement from the navy for “Less than 50% Irish Crew”, according to the inspection reports we analysed.
The infringement was issued to a large fishing vessel registered in Cork during an inspection last August. The three crew members were from Ireland, Egypt and Indonesia.
When asked about this, a spokesperson from the Defence Forces said that the “database of foreign nationals who have been successful in their application for work permits” is not accessible “onboard a trawler”.
“Therefore, it is not an appropriate course of action to detain a vessel at sea for this offence alone, as gathering crew members’ nationalities is not a clear indication if a fish vessel meets its licensing requirement.”
The spokesperson said that breaches are directed to the Workplace Relations Commission “by way of a monthly return” which includes navy inspection findings “for onward investigation as deemed fit”.
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EXPLOITATION IN THE FISHING INDUSTRY
As part of this investigation, our team examines how the Irish justice system is ‘failing’ migrant fishers who report exploitation. We also reveal how recently announced reforms in the fishing sector are leaving the most vulnerable workers behind.
Have a listen to The Explainer x Noteworthy podcast on the investigation’s findings.
FULL SERIES IS OUT NOW
By Maria Delaney of Noteworthy
This cross-border investigation with Geela Garcia in the Philippines and Louise Lawless in Ireland was supported by Journalismfund.eu’s Modern Slavery Unveiled grant programme.
Please support our work by submitting an idea, helping to fund a project or setting up a monthly contribution to our investigative fund HERE>>
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Normal service is resumed
@Expendable: When did it stop?
@Expendable: Don’t try to white-wash the last administration. Trump’s interview with Fox Business, after approving a 59 Tomahawk missile strike on Syria ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ETjmylZaFs ) and not Iraq, as Trump claimed. US military policy is not something I usually approve of, regardless of which president is in office, but the reality is that the countries of the world claim to be civilised, but act solely on the basis of their own long term interests and the civilians caught in the middle are of no importance.
@Expendable: “During Mr Obama’s eight years in office, 1,878 drone strikes were carried out, according to researchers. Since Mr Trump was elected in 2016, there have been 2,243 drone strikes. The Republican president has also made some of the operations, the ones outside of war zones, more secretive. As a result, things have different today: under Mr Trump, there are more drone strikes – and less transparency.”
@Cian Nolan: sure the same folks that gave the orders to Trump are giving them to Biden. The decomratic process is a joke to keep the people fighting while the real owners run off with all the money. Simple strategy and happens to work quite well.
@David Jordan: True. Barack Hussein Obama didn’t seem too interested in destroying ISIS, for some reason.
@bread of heaven: That is complete lies, the US led war against ISIS started under Obama in early 2015.
Here’s the US bombing ISIS, under Obama in early 2015, outside the ISIS besieged Kurdish town of Konani (siege of Kobani March 2014-March 2015).
Kurdish YPG fighters call in a US Air strike on ISIS (Battle of Kobani).
It was Obama that established the coalition cooperation with the Kurdish YPG and supportted their fight against ISIS. The US later, under Obama in October 2015, rebranded them as Syrian Democratic Forces. They were given arms, training and full support by the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Democratic_Forces
However, after their sacrifice, Trump abandoned them and allowed Turkey to invade Rojavia (Syrian Kurdish homeland in Northern Syria). They are now protected from further Turkish aggression by Russia and Syrian government forces.
@bread of heaven: Go asleep and keep dreaming
@Expendable: If anyone thought biden, a strange character who sniffs children’s hair in public and a man so quick to begin to ruin women’s sport within a month of being inaugurated by forcing them to compete against men would be a decent guy then they were deluded, pelosi and obama will call the shots.
@David Jordan: America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
@David Jordan: America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
Given that drones account for only a small portion of the munitions dropped in the past eight years, the numbers of civilians killed by Obama’s bombs could be in the thousands. But we can’t know for sure as the administration, and the mainstream media, has been virtually silent about the civilian toll of the administration’s failed interventions.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
4 years of peace under Trump
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: That administration was much less transparent. Both presidents aren’t angels.
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin:
You’re obviously conveniently forgetting the 10,000 kilo “mother of all bombs” trump dropped in Afghanistan and couldn’t wait to brag to the world about it
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: did you decide to ignore all the bombs The Donald dropped?
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: Several of Iraqs and Syrias cities were bombed to dust under Trump, it took over a year to extract all the bodies from the rubble. Far more fighetrs and civilians were killed under Trump that Obama as the fighting moved from rural areas to holdout cites, as the US led anti ISIS coalition sifted from using drones out in rural areas to bombing cities using warplanes from Deago García, Turkey and aircraft carriers in the Gulf. I think people forget how violent the fighting was in the last couple of years of the ISIS Caliphate as it was just ISIS.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/americas-war-on-syrian-civilians
https://youtu.be/1A6qJhSsuWc and 3pXsUP6Xeiw
@David Jordan: “For four months in 2017, an American-led coalition in Syria dropped some ten thousand bombs on Raqqa, the densely populated capital of the Islamic State. Nearly eighty per cent of the city, which has a population of three hundred thousand, was destroyed.”
“Nobody knows how many thousands of residents died, or how many are now homeless or confined to a wheelchair. What is certain is that the decimation of Raqqa is unlike anything seen in an American conflict since the Second World War.”
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: He preferred to keep it domestic.
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: Dont forget the Don signed off on a 350 billion dollar arms supply deal with the bastion of democracy, Saudi Arabia. They can then continue the dirty work on behalf of the US.
@David Jordan: You mean the capital city of Islamic State that both the US, Kurds, and local Iraqi Army tried to dislodge? Weren’t the civilian population warned to get out of Raqqa?
@Jamo: So just imagine back in the day, say Newry had lots of IRA people there. British army go in and level the city killing thousands. Mostly civilians, but hey no problem, we got a few IRA as well. It was the civilians own fault, they should have left.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: Are you seriously comparing a place where 90% of its citizens support IS versus Newry who id say 5% of the population supported the IRA? Are you saying Fintan that IS should have been left alone in Raqqa, the beheading, stoning, burning alive of children, torture of any non believers etc etc allowed to continue?
@Jamo: Supporting ISIS is one thing (even if under false support because of fear). Actively carrying out beheading is another. Majority of Palestinians support Hamas, deemed a terrorist organisation. Should their civilians receive the same faith? And I’d like to see where you got your 5% from. Support for IRA in South Armagh in the 70′s & 80′s was a lot higher than 5%, i.e Crossmaglen, etc. Not easy to flush out the likes of ISIS, but killing the very people you claim you are protecting??? There was no one left for ISIS to stone or behead.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: Newry is in Down Fintan not South Armagh.
@Frank Carty: America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
Trump 2024 ❤❤✌
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: “For four months in 2017, an American-led coalition in Syria dropped some ten thousand bombs on Raqqa, the densely populated capital of the Islamic State. Nearly eighty per cent of the city, which has a population of three hundred thousand, was destroyed.”
“Nobody knows how many thousands of residents died, or how many are now homeless or confined to a wheelchair. What is certain is that the decimation of Raqqa is unlike anything seen in an American conflict since the Second World War.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/americas-war-on-syrian-civilians
@David Jordan: and ISIS are no more … job done as promised
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: ISIS are still there, job not done.
@NotMyIreland: your mixing them up with SISI
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: Why don’t you move there then.
@Paul Mcnevin: good point …. I’ll certainly get the vaccine quicker
@David Jordan: America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: They wouldn’t have you in fairness.
But but but Trump it was Trump it had to be Trump!! Good old Joe back to bombings like it was under Barry O’ Bama. Was it actual militants this time or was it women and children again?
@Jamo: Trump dropped more bombs in 4 years than Obama did in 8. Trump also ordered that the military stopped reporting civilian casualties.
@Rebecca BarrettNp: No he didn’t, can I see proof of this or is it another CNN made up story?
@Jamo: I can’t post links, just Google Obama vs. Trump drone strikes, plenty of sources and well-documented since 2019, it’s crazy to me that you were unaware of this.
@Rebecca BarrettNp: Thats not true.
America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
@On the right side: It is true, and the article you are quoting is from 2017, Trump was President up until last month.
Ffs,didn’t take long
Any sign of those pesky WMD’s?
Really surprised that a President, whose Secretary of Defence was on the Board of Directors of Raytheon, decided to do this.
The Biden Bomber
More of the same, bombing allegedly terrorist camps or villages of men ,women& children.
Every supposedly targeted strike inevitably kills everyone in the vicinity, & not always the actual targets.
This is a Russia backed Syrian war, so what is the US messing in it?
Dont overlook that Trump betrayed the Kurds in his term & disgraced US involvement there.
If they want to restore influence & honour internationally, just help the Kurds to help themselves.
And leave it at that.
@William Kelly: it was a response to an attack on American contractors one of whom was killed & several injured.
@William Kelly: The US bombed the exact same site, an Iranian military base out in the desert just inside Syria’s border with Iraq in March 2020, for the exact same reasons, Iranian proxies fired rockets on the Baghdad Greenzone.
This is a continuation of the conflict with Iran that was started by Trump after he escalated tensions with Iran. He chose a harder line against Iran, encouraged by John Bolton and other War Hawks. He scraped the Iran nuclear deal and resumed the US official policy…suspended under Obama…that aspires to the overthrow of Iran government.
This led to increased tension and conflict with Iran and its proxies, a culminating in rocket and drone attacks on oil facilities and the Baghdad Greenzone by Iran’s proxies in Iraq, US assassination of General Qasem Soleimani in Jan 2020 and the attack on the Al +-Bukamal base in March 2020. Seems so long ago now.
“Warplanes target area near Syrian town of Al-Bukamal & Iraq’s Anbar province after rocket attack on Iraq base – reports” – https://www.rt.com/news/482883-airstrike-iraq-base-syria/
@Mjhint: What was the ‘contractor’ doing there?
@Bramley Hawthorne: contractors are usually truck divers or work in mine / bomb disposal. Here’s a list of 300 US contractors that were killed in Iraq, many were truck drivers.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5431088
The person in the Oval Office makes no difference. Eisenhower warned about this in his farewell address.
War mongers back in control. Arms industry badly needs a war.
Getting a bit tired of all the MAGA-bots on here.
@Robert: Not saying Biden’s an angel either.
Again America’s army God bless Trump Nobel price for peace well deserved
Yeah lads, be proud he is Irish.
After 4 years of the peace under the President Trump now the Democrats Biden, Harris controlled war machine has been fired up and back in action.
have your say