Mass layoffs of around 800 seafaring crew by P&O Ferries came as a "pure shock" to staff, a Co Cork man working as a second officer on the ferry operator's Larne to Scotland route has said.
Fintain O'Donoghue (29) returned home to Bantry on Wednesday after finishing a two-week rotation of work with P&O Ferries, and the next day heard he was out of a job.
Mr O’Donoghue, who has worked in the maritime sector for a decade, had been employed by P&O since last April, working the route between Larne in Antrim and Cairnryan in Scotland, which carries passengers and freight.
On Thursday morning he got a phone call from a colleague telling him staff had been told not to load freight onto the ship ahead of a scheduled journey.
Within hours news had broken that the company was sacking 800 seafaring crew without notice, with the company temporarily suspending services amid the disruption.
P&O said it was losing £100 million per year and its Dubai-based owner, DP World, could not keep funding its losses.
Speaking to The Irish Times, Mr O’Donoghue said the decision came “out of the blue”.
The Department of Transport said it had been assured by P&O “that Irish based staff will not be affected” by the layoffs.
Officials had been told the company’s Dublin-Liverpool service would resume in the coming days.
Mr O’Donoghue said he had been employed by the company through the UK, and a “good number” of staff in Northern Ireland were among those sacked. “Maybe a third of the guys I worked with lived in Northern Ireland,” he said.
“We knew that the company was losing money, but it’s Covid and you’d expect any tourism business to be down,” Mr O’Donoghue said.
The Larne-Cairnryan route, which mainly consisted of ferrying freight, had been “really busy” of late, he said. Staff working on that route had believed their job was “as safe as a house,” he said.
Mr O’Donoghue said he believed the move from the company was an attempt to “get rid of unionised staff”.
Protests were held at a number of ports on Friday, including Larne, over the decision to sack staff, with trade unions calling for a boycott of the company.
