Irish Ships and Shipping
www.irishships.com
Irish
Seafarers & Trade Union Organisation
And The Struggle
To Defend An Irish Merchant Fleet
by Francis Devine 2002
©R.T.E. RADIO- FIRST BROADCAST 26th.
AUGUST 2002
AS PART OF THE THOMAS DAVIS LECTURES
"THIS ISLAND NATION" EDITED BY TOM MacSWEENEY.
Little has
been written about the organisation of Irish seafarers. What follows is a
tentative sketch. It suggests a vibrant history of international
solidarity, constant battles against employer scandal and Government
indifference, and a deep commitment, beyond self-interest, to the development of
an Irish merchant marine.
In memory of the late Bernard Malone (stoker on Irish
Shipping) — Barney to his Irish Shipping comrades and Benny in his native Howth,
where he was much-loved.
Early Attempts At Organising Seamen
Organisation among seamen existed from the 1840s from Deny
to Cork, Belfast to Wexford. The 'friendly society' aspect dominated and
mariners and masters often combined in the same organisation for sick, burial
and benevolent purposes.
Fishermen were organised in Ringsend and Cork Harbour, the
Fishermen's Society Of Saint Patrick banner being among those that paraded in
the 1875 O'Connell Centenary. The 1873 banner of the Boyne Fishermen, which
hangs in Drogheda's Millmount Museum, is a 'masterpiece, painted in oils on
canvas and worthy of exhibition in any gallery in the world'. As with Shannon
eel fishers today, concerns were for licences, access and quotas rather than
wages and conditions. Fishermen have sporadically organised since. The Irish
Transport & General Workers' Union recruited large numbers in the mid 1970s
resulting in fishermen, uniquely, being covered within the terms of the Unfair
Dismissals Act, 1977-2001, a rare extension of protective employment law to the
seafarers.
The Merchant Shipping Acts reinforced command structures
and what might be an industrial dispute ashore could be mutiny at sea. In
addition, Irish mariners tended to ship out of their home ports where
relationships with owners and masters were close and the cost of failed trade
union activity could be ostracism and/or emigration.
Many, of course, always sought work on British ports and it
was here, in 1887, that Joseph Havelock Wilson established the National
Amalgamated Sailors' & Firemen's Union Of Great Britain. Branches were opened in
Arklow, Cork, Wexford and Youghal. In 1890, a three month long Dockers strike in
support of sacked Cork seamen spread to Waterford and Limerick as employers
attacked the infant union.
Ship-owners resented the ' tyrannical attempts of a
dictatorial body of unionists to impose demands on the industry' and in
September, 1890, the Shipping Federation emerged as a powerful employer body,
supplying strike breakers and influencing mercantile law.
Until the 1890s, trade unionism had been confined to the
traditional skilled trades and was conservative politically and industrially.
The so-called 'New Unionism' that now exploded onto the waterfront extended
organisation down to the unskilled masses, involved sympathetic and general
strikes, and carried a distinctly socialist perspective.
Often seen as originating among dock labourers, 'New
Unionism' can more correctly be attributed to seamen. In 1894, Wilson revived
his union as the National Sailors & Firemen's Union Of Great Britain & Ireland.
By 1896 branches existed in Belfast, Cork and Dublin. They were difficult to
maintain, however, and in 1898 Irish offices were closed with staff owed monies.
At this point Wilson was still 'militant, a rabble-rouser,
a fearless advocate of the seafarer, stumping the country agitating, organising
and inciting'. He was the Jim Larkin of seamen and in 1911 came his finest hour.
1911 - Wilson 's Finest Hour, 1913 -
Wilson 's Disgrace
By April, over 150,000 seamen had voted for international
action 'on the same day and at the same hour, until their unions receive proper
recognition, establish the right of collective bargaining and uniform rates of
wages and conditions of labour on all ships'. Similar international strike
action would be relevant today in the struggle against Flags Of Convenience and
the slave wages paid to seamen across the globe.
In 1911 what followed broke the Shipping Federation's power
and won a general increase in wages. Wilson's triumph contained the seeds of his
rapid shift to the right as he sought strategies that would preserve his gains,
keep control of the 'ticket' from the Shipping Federation and maintain the
advantage of newly-acquired respectability.
Irish seamen fought hard in 1911. Dublin flags proclaimed -
'War Is Now Declared: Seamen Strike Hard & Strike For Liberty'. It was, however.
Big Jim Larkin's Transport Union - appointed as agents by the Sailors & Firemen
- that represented the 400 Dublin members and paid them strike pay from
Transport Union funds. The desire to assist seamen in Belfast led to James
Connolly's appointment as Northern Organiser on 13 July, 1911, his first
full-time union position.
Irish employers, led by Samuel McCormick, refused to
concede and 800 men were locked out until Larkin and the celebrated British
labour veteran, Tom Mann, met with the Under Secretary For Ireland, and
persuaded the employers to accept the union's terms. Early in 1913, there were
strikes on the City Of Dublin Steam Packet Company and in Sligo, the Transport
Union again representing seamen. As the 1913 Lock Out reached stalemate,
Havelock Wilson - as a member of the Trades Union Congress Parliamentary
Committee - appeared as 'reason personified' in appreciating the employer's
perspective and suggesting conciliation. Wilson despised Larkin, to whom Dublin
seamen were more loyal. Wilson suggested Larkin 'had a splendid case but made
such a sorry mess of it, doing everything he ought not to have done and nothing
he ought'. Larkin responded with vituperation and Wilson's decision to settle
with the employers caused outrage.
Dublin sailors refused to go back and were quickly replaced
by scab Sailors' & Firemen's Union members from Liverpool. Even the steamship
Hare that had nobly brought in the first food shipment for the lock out victims
was declared a 'black-leg boat'.
Connolly later witheringly suggested that 'the scab who
carries a union card is the scabbiest of all scabs'. Dublin seamen would be slow
to forgive the Sailors' Union.
It is seldom considered that 1913 was essentially a
maritime dispute. As now, the economy depended on trade through Dublin. Connolly
tried to close the port 'as tight as a drum' in a desperate effort to break the
deadlock and as indication of his appreciation of the strategic significance of
the sea. The food ships, attempts to ship out the starving children, the
dependence of so many workers and their families on the maritime economy, all
underline the neglected fact that the sea was central in 1913.
That this is never acknowledged is part of the mental block
that denies the country's maritime dependence.
The Birth Of Irish Seamen's Unions
After 1913, the Transport Union represented seamen and
fought a wage reduction of six shillings and sixpence imposed by the British
Maritime Board in 1923 in Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Dundalk, Limerick, Newry and
Waterford. The compliance of the Sailors' & Firemen's Union made the Transport
Union task very difficult and they failed to break the Maritime Board's control
of Irish seamen's wages. Seamen on the B+I struck unofficially the same year to
protest over discrimination in crew selection and to demand the reinstatement of
the wage cut. It began a rift between seamen and the Transport Union, whose dock
members always bore the brunt of seamen's struggles.
In 1926, the Sailors' & Firemen's Union changed its name to
the National Union Of Seamen. In Dublin in 1933 the Irish Seamen & Port Workers'
Union was founded, followed by the Irish Free State Pilots' Association in 1935.
Boosted by membership in Irish Shipping, the Irish Seamen & Port Workers
campaigned for the establishment of an Irish Maritime Board. They had won an
'out-of-convoy' bonus during the War to demonstrate the value of being able to
negotiate directly with employers. An Irish Maritime Board was set up on 15
October, 1948. The British Maritime Board's objectives were to secure 'closer
co-operation between the employers and employed of the British Mercantile Marine
in the maintenance of the supremacy of the British Empire', objectives surely at
odds with the strategic needs of the Irish nation and its seafarers? Opposition
to the NUS was not merely a nationalistic expression but reflected tensions over
crewing methods.
In 1951, the Irish Seamen & Port Workers had a signal
victory in a wage claim, having rejected an initial Labour Court Recommendation.
The principle involved in this dispute was that an Irish
union successfully negotiated wages and conditions for Irish seamen, separate
and distinct from British seamen. Seamen were becoming a force in the Irish
Seamen & Port Workers and in 1954, Des Branigan emerged as a new, intelligently
focused and charismatic advocate. The union changed its name in 1955 to the
Marine, Port & General Workers' Union. Branigan's legacy includes the wonderful
badge that bears the silver starry plough and triple knot of Saint Brendan The
Navigator against a midnight blue background. The starry ensign represents Irish
socialism and the navigational safety of members at sea and the knot's Celtic
interweave exemplifies the interdependence and solidarity essential to trade
union members.
At Congress Of Irish Union gatherings, Branigan led demands
for the proper development of Irish Shipping. The country possessed less than
half the minimum recommended tonnage of 250,000 tons and no tanker fleet. Norway
was cited as example of a successful maritime policy that not alone underpinned
the country's neutrality and independence but contributed significantly to its
balance of payments.
Branigan's radical militancy offended powerful clerical
figures and moves were made to oust him from the Marine Port, the chosen vehicle
being the jettisoning of the union's seamen's section.
In 1957, a closed shop agreement - always denied to
Branigan - was offered to a new body, the Irish Seamen's Union. This new union
was seen by many as a company union and was opposed in a rancorous and unseemly
dispute. Ship-owners in Limerick and Wexford threatened to sail under the
British Flag in order to deal with the NUS and employers generally openly stated
their desire to stamp out what they called an undesirable element controlling
Dublin port. After a fourteen week strike, matters were resolved by the Labour
Court and in 1959 the Seamen's Union Of Ireland emerged as an independent union
acceptable to the men.
Des Branigan was now General Secretary of the Irish Pilots'
& Marine Officers' Association and he set about seeking reform of the Pilotage
Act, 1913 that condemned pilots to meagre earnings from casual work.
Less than a hundred in number, Branigan pointed out that it
was 'through the hands and skill of the marine pilots that the country's imports
and exports arrive and depart safely'. A bitter dispute was defeated and the
broken union merged with the Workers' Union Of Ireland in 1962.
Branigan still pushed for maritime policy, telling the
Irish Trade Union Congress that 'we have the geographical advantage, we have the
trained personnel, we have every advantage if we want to exploit them'. He
concluded that 'it lies with the Government if this desirable advance is to take
place'. And it still does.
The Battle To Win The NUS For Seamen
The NUS were a silent delegation to Irish TUCs. They were
still recovering from their ostracism after the 1926 General Strike and Wilson's
pursuit of 'non-political trade unionism'. Wilson died at his desk on 16 April,
1929. King George V and Queen Mary sent a letter of sympathy to Mrs Wilson. Lord
Sanderson, Shipping Federation, observed that he was a 'dictator in the affairs
of the seamen' and 'one of the few really constructive thinkers in the trade
union movement'. The Miner spoke for the majority and reflected the attitude to
Wilson within the British labour movement even to this day.
'We do not propose to overstep the bounds of good taste in
our comments on Havelock Wilson ... The War had a most disturbing effect upon
his outlook and in post war years he has been, in plain language, a faithful
ally of the employing class. His union ... has been a faithful servant of the
ship-owners and he himself used the whole of his own and his union's influence
to disrupt and demoralise other sections .. .He will go down in history as one
of the tragedies of the twentieth century working class movement.'
Wilson's legacy, compounded by the economic collapse of the
1930s, was a highly centralised and rigid union structure. Seamen had no trade
union presence while at sea. The Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, made no provision
for shipboard representation and enshrined absolute authority in the lawful
command of the master.
This command culture permeated the NUS where the General
Secretary was the all powerful captain of a trade union ironclad.
Mutiny slowly boiled and in 1960 the National Seamen's
Reform Movement set about the task of winning the union back for ordinary
seamen. Waterford born Paddy Neary was a leading figure and Dungarvan's
Sean Cullinane typical of many rank-and-file Irish seamen who joined the
reformers. General Secretary Tom Yates branded them as 'communists dedicated to
disruption' and 'self-styled militants whose minds are so closed that the whole
development of collective bargaining has passed them by'. A strike in 1960
advanced wages and conditions and shipboard representation was finally agreed in
1965.
In 1966 a strike on the principle of the forty-hour week
comparable to shore workers lasted seven weeks and by 1 July saw 891 ships
immobilised. Prime Minister Harold Wilson declared a State Of Emergency and
talked of a 'tightly knit group of politically motivated men'.
The NUS was isolated nationally and internationally.
Some saw the strike as disaster, others saw it as the union
'coming of age'. Above all, it at last cast aside the image of an Uncle Tom
organisation dominated and manipulated by the ship-owners.
The ghost of the collaborationist Havelock Wilson was lain.
2,000 people — 500 of them seamen - marched in Belfast on
21 May 1st.1966 and Irish solidarity generally was impressive.
Gerry Doyle reflected on the strike in a letter attacking
Harold Wilson and George Brown, suggesting that 'the cost to the country
compared to the cost of meeting the seamen's claim is proof that this Government
is quite willing to cut its throat to cure laryngitis'.
Irish support saw the NUS affiliate to the Irish Congress
Of Trade Unions and Belfast Trades Council.
The 1967 NUS AGM was held in Liberty Hall as a gesture of
gratitude to the Irish labour movement and Irish people for their support in
adversity.
Terry Clare, steward on the Rosslare-Fishguard route, was
elected to the NUS Executive Committee in 1955 and held that position until
retirement in 1991. He took his Executive duties very seriously but worked hard
'to get this union to swing a little more to the left'. When Sir Thomas Yates
retired as General Secretary, he singled out Clare as 'someone who never agreed
with me', a compliment indeed!. Clare was a founder of the Merchant Navy
Ratings Pension Fund. Leftist activists dismissed an interest in pensions as
indicating a middle class orientation. This was a myopic view.
The collapse of the fund was a bitter blow to Clare, now
active in the Pensioner's Parliament and a vigorous campaigner for the aged at
national and local level. He was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1982 in
recognition of his pensions activity. He never missed an Executive meeting.
Bamey Crossan, a Glen Swilly man, had many years deep-water
experience before gaining a reputation as a NUS Official in the Thames Basin. He
became Dublin Branch Secretary in 1963 and, when he retired in 1991, not one of
his members was out of work. A quietly effective figure, Crossan's social
conscience endeared him to all seamen and generated commitment from shore-based
trade union colleagues when a ship needed to be listed or a cargo blacked.
Nothing was either too much trouble or too late at a night, whether the seaman
was a NUS member or not. Dublin Branch regularly contributed to national union
affairs, tending to concentrate on bread-and butter issues of annual leave, pay
and conditions.
After the fruitless dispute with P&O in Dover in 1988, the
NUS's fate as an independent union with a declining membership and perilous
finances was sealed. They merged with the National Union Of Railwaymen in 1990
to form the National Union Of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers. Seamen were
swamped by rail sections and rule changes quickly obliterated most traces of a
once proud union.
The Scandal Of Irish Shipping And Sales Of The Century
Seamen on the Irish Sea negotiated various Container and
General Purpose Agreements in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Seamen's Union Of Ireland once picketed RTE in defence
of their members employed by the national broadcaster as riggers! In 1984 the
Government liquidated Irish Shipping. There were fears for Irish Continental
Line, Belfast Car Ferries and the B&I. Speaking against the closure of Irish
Shipping, Terry Clare said that the 'Dail and the nation were held in contempt'.
Justice Murphy had found that there was no fraud involved
but Clare said, 'What rubbish. Fraud was perpetrated on the people of Ireland
and the seafarers of Ireland'.
Anger was unbounded. The Federated Workers' Union Of
Ireland mounted a ceaseless campaign, picketing the Dail, Ministers' homes and
anywhere that the 'Save Our Ships' campaign could attract support, as well as
making endless appearances before the Labour Court and Employment Appeals
tribunal in pursuit of the sacked members' interests.
Taosieach Garret FitzGerald's memory of the affair shows
some unease as it was 'one of the most painful decisions we had to take while in
Government'. Ordinary Irish Shipping staff were the only sacrificed state sector
employees in this period of severe retrenchment to be confined to statutory
redundancy payments.
The Government's subsequent response to the Insurance
Corporation Of Ireland-Allied Irish Banks scandal makes for an interesting, if
not surprising, contrast.
The B&I saw the workforce halved and wages cut by twenty
per cent and talk was of 'survival plans' in an atmosphere hostile to public
enterprise and where the future of the national economy, never mind a shipping
company, seemed at stake. The 1984 give-away of Sealink - described by the NUS
as the 'Sale of the Century' - created all sorts of precedents and pressures.
Privatisation brought crew reductions, worsened conditions and the continuous
threat of cheaper, foreign crews. Irish seamen on the Irish sea were becoming an
endangered species.
Not A Minister For Fish And Chips But A Minister For
Shipping
Led by Barney Crossan, Terry Clare and Sean McCourt, the
Irish Congress Of Trade Unions adopted a raft of motions in the 1990s outlining
the crucial elements for an Irish maritime policy. Congress demanded the
establishment of a deep-sea and tanker fleet under an Irish or Euro flag. They
want worker participation within any emerging company and improved worker
representation on ferry safety committees. Flags Of Convenience needed to be
tightly controlled and a permit system to discriminate in favour of Irish and EU
nationals in home waters introduced, together with the extension to seamen of
the EU Directives on the Organisation Of Working Time and Posting Of Workers.
The Irish maritime industry is in danger of total
disappearance.
What other domestic industry with such actual and
employment potential would be disregarded in this manner?
Terry Clare offered derision to the politician who, when
given a marine portfolio, said he was to be 'Minister for Fish & Chips'. 'We
don't want a Minister for Fish & Chips', said Clare, 'we want a Minister For
Shipping'. Sean McCourt stated that marine transport 'accounts for 99% of all
Ireland's imports and exports' but with so few merchant ships 'it becomes
abundantly clear that Ireland is largely reliant upon foreign flag vessels'. The
current debate on Irish neutrality is incomplete without a proper discussion of
such dependence. Whatever about entering or not entering military alliances,
when is the island nation going to enter an alliance with the sea that surrounds
it? Government commitments have been given about a minimum Irish merchant fleet
but they have been ignored. Congress adopted all marine motions with acclaim but
whether anyone has been listening is debatable.
The Coming Of The ITF And A Warning To All Shipping
The increasing incidence of unpaid Third World crews
appearing in vessels of dubious seaworthiness in Irish ports is an obvious
effect of Flags Of Convenience and the virtual slave conditions of many east
European, Asian and African seafarers.
Support was always given by Irish trade unions but in a
piecemeal and uncoordinated manner. In 2001 a meeting of all marine unions in
SIPTU College led to the appointment of Tony Ayton as International Transport
Workers' Federation (ITF) Inspector for Ireland.
It was reported recently that Ireland was second bottom of
the European league table for inspections under Port-State Control regulations,
so the new ITF Office in Waterford is not short of work in trying to implement
the 'Uniform TCC Collective Agreement For Crews On Flags Of Convenience Ships'.
The underlying problem is the absence of an effective
European Union maritime policy that will defend traditional European seafaring
jobs at decent wages and conditions, respect our collective maritime cultures
and recognise the significant contribution to the continent's trade and coastal
environment that well-trained, highly motivated and properly rewarded crews
could make. Michael Hayes of SIPTU is working closely with sister maritime
unions to extend United Kingdom legislation concerning work permits for
seafarers to Irish ports. This will give priority to EU nationals. SIPTU
continues to campaign for the restoration of an Irish merchant fleet and is
appalled by the lack of training and investment in what should be a dynamic
industry. Everyone hails the Celtic Tiger but few recognise that is, ultimately,
a sea-borne phenomenon.
John De Courcy Ireland asks, how much is being spent on
foreign shipping and agents and can this cash not be directed to create and
sustain a viable Irish merchant fleet?
So, Irish seafarers have a long history of organisation and
struggle. They were central to the emergence of a 'New Unionism' with a
socialist perspective. They were at the heart of the 1913 Lock Out, an episode
that should be re-assessed for its maritime significance. The internationalism
of seamen's trade unionism was seen in the heroic food ships and the fluttering
emblem of the National Transport Workers' Federation on the steamship Hare. The
defence of Irish Shipping and cross channel ferry routes passenger and freight -
was central to trade union demands. Seafarers went beyond selfish concerns for
wages and conditions to express concern for the nation's strategic interests,
its economic wellbeing, genuine neutrality and independence, and the safety,
health and welfare of passengers and our coastal environment. Today, seafarers'
unions seek to defend all mariners through ITF agreements. It has been and
remains - a constant battle against a never slacking tide of public and
political indifference.
In thinking again of faithful and courageous ordinary
seamen like Benny Malone -stoker on Irish Shipping is to consider
thousands of similar tales of quiet dedication for little reward and less
respect. Seamen's trade unions have never been numerically strong. They have
been charged with corruption and internal mismanagement and they have been riven
by dissent. But they have survived tremendous odds. Then opponents have been
powerful, international shipping interests, national and European Government.
They have developed a unique solidarity nonetheless, served their members
interests well and presented to the broad labour movement and the political
parties a maritime policy that requires action - and requires action now.
"A warning to all Irish shipping is, that unless
these trade union policies are adopted, there will very shortly be no Irish
shipping. And no one will be better off for that sad eventuality."
Francis Devine 2002
©R.T.E. RADIO- FIRST BROADCAST 26th. AUGUST 2002 AS PART OF THE THOMAS DAVIS LECTURES "THIS ISLAND NATION" EDITED BY TOM MacSWEENY.
Also by FRANCIS DEVINE
Irish Trades Union Congress & The Titanic
In compiling
this article I am grateful for the assistance of
Tony Ayton (International Transport Workers' Federation,
Waterford),
Des Branigan (Maritime Institute, Dublin),
Denis Gardner (Seamen's Union Of Ireland, Dublin),
Deirdre Burrell (Howth),
Terry Clare (National Union Of Rail, Maritime & Transport
Workers, Wexford),
Barney Crossan (National Union Of Rail, Maritime &
Transport Workers, Dublin),
Sedn Culinane (National Union Of Rail Maritime & Transport
Workers, Tramore),
Paddy Daly (Howth),
John Finnic (Services Industrial professional & Technical
Union, Dublin),
Michael Hayes (Services, Industrial Professional &
Technical Union, Dublin),
Carol Murphy (Librarian, SIPTU College, Dublin),
Jim Quinn (Services Industrial Professional & Technical
Union, Dublin)
Ann Riordan (Howth)
and John B. Smethurst (Working Class Movement Library,
Manchester)
Irish Trades Union Congress & The Titanic
By FRANCIS DEVINE 2002
At the 1912 meeting of the Irish Trade Union Congress in
Clonmel - most famous as the Congress that, in effect, created the Labour Party
- G.W. Hayes of Waterford, one of four delegates from the National Sailors' &
Foremen's Union, moved the following resolution -
'That we, the representatives of the organised workers of
Ireland, are of the opinion that the time has arrived - and it has been duly
demonstrated by the Titanic disaster, whereby there was a great loss of life -
when pressure should be brought not only by trade unionists but also by the
general public, upon the Government to take immediate steps to bring about an
efficient manning scale both for the deck and the stoke-hold.
That this Congress considers that as the Titanic disaster,
and the terrible loss of life occasioned thereby has clearly demonstrated to the
whole world the insufficiency of boat accommodation in case of accident, and
that want of a sufficient number of skilled seamen, we call upon the Government
to take immediate action to see that a sufficient number of efficient seamen are
engaged for the proper manning of all British ships to ensure the safety of
every passenger and every member of the crew.'
Hayes said that in 'an accident like ... the Titanic, the
millionaires and the goldbugs got the fighting chance for their lives but the
passengers in the steerage were locked up and allowed to go down with the ship.'
Emotions at Congress were high and Hayes' remarks were
greeted with 'loud applause' as they shared his anger at the treatment of the
crew and steerage passengers. J. White, Sailors' & Foremen's delegate from
Newry, in seconding the motion, complained of inadequately trained crews. He
claimed that 'he saw but three weeks before a man taken straight from the plough
and placed on board ship as an A.B.'
Cries of 'shame' greeted this remark. James H. Bennett,
long a Sailors' & Firemen and later National Union Of Seamen (NUS) Official in
Belfast, Dublin and Waterford, added farther detail about working conditions on
board ship, suggesting that there 'there were cases of men committing suicide in
the stoke-hod on account of the ship being under-manned ... on a Cross Channel
steamer on which he had crossed on the preceding Friday, there were only six
boats for 1,000 passengers and crew. The lives of the men who manned and the
passengers who sailed on their ship were evidently not much thought of by some
of the ship-owners.'
Delegates shouted 'hear, hear' and some thought that the
motion did 'not go far enough' but it was adopted unanimously.
The Irish Trade Union Congress Annual Report 1913 stated
that the matter of the 'Manning Of Ships & Life-Saving At Sea' had been drawn to
the attention of the 'responsible Ministers of the Crown and to the Board Of
Trade'.
They had also lobbied the Labour Party and Irish political
parties. John Redmond, Irish Party, had promised support and Labour would back a
'well-considered scheme' that would 'alleviate the disastrous loss of life and
privations to mariners'.
James Bennett, speaking to the report,
noted that the;
'Irish Party were deserving [of our] condemnation in
reference to their inactivity on the question of life-saving at sea. They did
nothing in the matter.'
That was the last the Irish Trade Union Congress heard of
the Titanic or indeed Maritime safety for some time.
Parallels with today's Flags
Of Convenience vessels, inadequately trained crews working in virtually slave
conditions and the threat to the future of Irish and European Union seamen on
the Irish Sea would indicate that few lessons were ultimately learned from the
Titanic. Profit and free enterprise would still come ahead of genuine concern
for passenger, crew and environmental safety.
©Francis Devine 2002