African fishermen left in murky legal waters after trawler sinks off Aran Islands
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Four African fishermen are stranded in Galway in legal no-man’s-land after their trawler sank last Sunday.
The men were recruited in their native Ghana last year under a UK visa system, but ended up working on an Irish-registered vessel.
The trawler on which they were working sank early last Sunday off the Aran Islands and the men, along with the boat’s captain, were airlifted to safety.
After a short stay in hospital, they were released and have since been accommodated initially in a hotel then in Salthill Garda Station, and for the last few days in a local hostel.
The men claim to have lost most of their earnings over the last eight months which they had kept in cash on board the trawler. They were recruited by an agent in Ghana, to whom they say they paid the equivalent of €2,300 each.
Their employment contract states that they were to be paid £1,300 (sterling) per month to work on the trawler out of Kilkeel, Co Down. The contract includes the name of captain Tommy Conneely with the address Kilkeel, Co Down, but the boat is actually registered in the Republic of Ireland.
Currently, the Irish State has no visa or work permit system to employ fishermen, as a previous one had been halted because of irregularities.
For most of their time working on the trawler, it was operating out of Rossaveel, Co Galway. One of the men, James Weuah, told the that he and his colleagues have “lost our money and our items".
Once their status was determined by local gardaí, the men were asked to surrender their passports.
The captain of the Mr Conneely, says he organised for the men to get clothes and to put them up in a local hotel for the first few nights after they were released from hospital.
“I told them that because the trawler went down their contracts were over, and I wanted to bring them back to Belfast where I was going to organise flights home for them.”
However, he says the men refused to go. Mr Conneely says there was nothing irregular about the four men’s working status.
Michael O’Brien, the fisheries lead in Ireland for the International Transport Workers Federation, says that the men should not leave the State until investigations into the sinking of the trawler and their working conditions and status are completed.
“We are concerned that by proposing to quickly remove these men from the State, a number of agencies, including the Marine Survey Office and the Workplace Relations Commission, would not have them available for interview.”
A spokesman for the Department of Transport said The Marine Survey Office has commenced follow-up activities in relation to this incident.