P&O Ferries: Larne Port protest over P&O Ferries sackings

A protest has taken place in Larne after P&O Ferries sacked 800 UK staff without giving them any notice.

It will be another week before P&O ships can operate from the County Antrim port.

The Larne protest was organised by the RMT union, but also features representatives from a number of other unions.

Danny McQuaid, from the union, who lost his job with P&O on Thursday, said he was "shocked and saddened".

There were also protests on Friday across the ports of Dover, Liverpool, and Hull in England.

Unions are discussing possible legal action over the job cuts, and the UK government has said it is reviewing its contracts with the firm.

In a letter to the company, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he was "deeply concerned" at the move and questioned whether it was legal.

P&O said its survival was dependent on "making swift and significant changes now".

"I have been here about eight years, but there are some of the guys who have been here 30, 35 years," Mr McQuaid said, at the protest in Larne.

"They have given their lives to this company and have been part of the reason they have been such a success."

Mr McQuaid said the way staff had been treated on Thursday was "absolutely brutal".

"There's no good time to lose your job, but certainly this is particularly painful, not just for me, but a lot of the guys - there are some young guys with families and mortgages to pay," he added.

Nearly a quarter of P&O Ferries' UK staff were told via a pre-recorded video message on Thursday that it was their "final day of employment".

Gale Dowey has worked for P&O since 1994, joining the company at 18.

Ms Dowey works on board the ship for two weeks at a time which amounts to living on board for six months of the year.

"It's my life, it's the only life I know," she said.

"We eat together, we're with each other 24/7 and we spend longer together than we do with our families."

Ms Dowey, who is also a RMT union official, said P&O prided itself in having employees with long service.

"I took phone call after phone call yesterday from grown men, crying, asking me how they're going to go home to their wife and children and tell them they no longer have a career."

On Thursday, private security officers were sent on to a ship docked at Larne to remove staff.

"They were told they would be handcuffed and removed if they didn't comply," she said.

She said staff were taken to their cabins and told they had five minutes to fill a bag and leave the ship.

"They left the ship yesterday absolutely humiliated, they were treated like common criminals for working for this company and being loyal, long serving employees," she added.

Ms Dowey said she had no idea what to do next and was worried about the cost of her mortgage and rising cost of living.

The temporary halting of P&O's sailings at Larne Port will affect supplies coming into Northern Ireland as other ferry operators are "pretty near full", Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots has said.

Mr Poots said there was not the capacity and there would be consequences.

"There are export materials that need to get out of Northern Ireland which won't get out," he told BBC's The View programme.

"About 50% of our food is exported out of Great Britain, so that is a real problem for us."

Stormont's economy and agriculture committees held emergency meetings, in closed session, on Friday to discuss the implications for supply chains.

The disruption to the goods supply chains was currently "manageable", the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium (NIRC) said.

However, as P&O sailings are a key part of Northern Ireland's retail logistics infrastructure, the matter needed to be resolved "very quickly", added NIRC's director Aodhán Connolly.

He said retailers had stock in large distribution centres which should last for about four or five days.

Retailers were looking at alternative Irish Sea options such as using the ports of Belfast and Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland and Dublin in the Republic of Ireland, he added.

With regard to the transport of goods to and from mainland Europe, Mr Connolly said retailers were also considering using the Eurotunnel or air freight.

P&O Ferries tweeted on Friday evening that services between Larne and Cairnryan were suspended and they were no longer able to arrange alternative travel.

"For essential travel, customers are advised to seek alternatives themselves," the firm said.

The ferry firm said the "tough decision" was made to secure the future of the business.

P&O has said that its services will not operate for the "next few days", with passengers told to use other companies.

"In its current state, P&O Ferries is not a viable business," it said.

"We have made a £100m loss year on year, which has been covered by our parent DP World.

"This is not sustainable. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries."