Irish Maritime Industry?

[spider CQMS Find all posts View Profile Close spider]

I don't know much about this, and realise that this is an Irish website, but have a look at www.mcga.gov.uk, follow the press releases link, then the detentions link.

It is broken down into UK flagged and foreign flagged detentions of merchant ships for breaching safety regulations.

There seems to be a lot more foreign flagged ships detained,indeed there has'nt been a UK flagged ship detained since Oct. 2004.

[DeV Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close DeV]

Having Irish flagged vessels is vital to the national economy - Irish Shipping proved that between 1939 and 1945. It is the ONLY way we can guarantee access to the service, eg Stena decide the Dublin-Holyhead route is unprofitable and pulls out.

The flags of vessels are only changed in order to reduce the amount of legal obligations a company must comply with.

[Goldie fish Tim Horgan Find all posts View Profile Close Goldie fish]

Oddly enough, most of the ships that slam into each other in the middle of the ocean or go aground on well known rocks are crewed by these foreign flags too. The standard of training in many cases is non existent, compared to that of irish, British or Chinese Crews.

The Greeks were the worst in my day.

[Guest Close ldman60119]

It comes down to one thing, money. The companies care about the money, the politican getting paid off think about the money. It the Wal-Mart theory. Drive the local companies out of business with the foreign companies having cheaper prices. When the local companies go under, then the foreign can raise their prices. And if their prices get too high, then another foreign company will get the contracts. How many cruise ships fly under the US or UK flag? How many crew memebers even speak English?

It is a real shame.

[Goldie fish Tim Horgan Find all posts View Profile Close Goldie fish]

Irish Ferries vessel detained at Rosslare

21 December 2005 21:59
The Irish Ferries vessel, Normandy, has been detained at Rosslare Port after Department of Marine inspectors found several deficiencies in the ship's operations.

These have been listed as 'fire fighting' arrangements, 'safety management' and 'crew training'.

The Normandy was taken off the Irish shipping register a year ago and is now flagged in the Bahamas. She has a crew mostly of eastern European seafarers.



The vessel will not be returning to Cherbourg tonight and arrangements are being made for 700 passengers, many of them immigrants returning home for Christmas, to travel via Britain.

Intending passengers who had planned to travel on the return trip from France will also have to make other arrangements.

Irish Ferries will have to apply for the ship to be inspected again by Department surveyors before it is allowed to sail.

In a statement tonight, the company said work on the exhaust system had now been completed satisfactorily and there would be an independent inspection tomorrow, the result of which would be reported to the Department.

The company said it was confident the ship would return to normal service quickly. However, this would be after the normal Christmas break.

Tonight's sailing to Cherbourg and the return was to have been the last sailing before the festive break.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/1221/irishferries.html