Irish Ferries To Replace Most Of 543 Staff With Workers From E. Europe

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Never seen anything like it in the 26 counties / ROI before - nothing on that scale. Protests involving 150,000 people in a country with a population approaching 4 million - massive. Was covering the Pembroke Dock (Wales) Irish Ferries protest for ***** last week and there were 30 people - mainly union activists from Swansea, etc. - the locals seemed more interested in getting the shopping in (mind you, part of the problem was that the unions organising the protest were pretty hopeless - nobody seemed to know about the protest).

Well done the Irish!

[mpd]

true it's good to see someone standing up for worker's rights - but haven't the Irish done rather nicely out of EU membership - and therefore isn't there just a hint of hypocrisy here...?

As Dogbox points out ya can't have it both ways - if you shop for your 5 pound pair of jeans at Asda then you're part of the problem. You can't make jeans for 5 quid a pair if you're making them in the UK.

Conversely, 'ethical shopping' is expensive (if you can even find a pair of jeans that are NOT made in low-wage sweatshop conditions), and with downward pressure on wages being applied by that very self-same globalisation and high living costs, who can afford to shop ethically apart from the priveleged few?

Personally it worries me that the world is on a path where we will have an ultra-ultra rich small elite and the rest of will have low wages and no job security as we are forced to compete for jobs with all and sundry worldwide. The normalising of wages will mean reduced pay for those in the first world, not increased wages for those in the less developed continents.

High employment - but on subsistence pay with no worker rights. This is the 'utopia' for those who sit in the boardroom. Maximise profit via lowly paid human resources whom you can hire and fire with impunity. And it's very, very dangerous!

[Duplex]

I don’t think that Irish people in general have made the connection between job outsourcing and their financial wellbeing. Unsecured consumer debt is growing at 27% per annum, house prices are still growing in excess of incomes growth and foreign direct investment has fallen by 70%. The construction boom has lasted a decade now, long enough to distort the economy, meaning training, education and investment are targeted at an unsustainable internal construction market.

Most of the new Eastern European guest workers are employed in the construction and low end service sectors, Irish Banks suggest that these workers will remain in Ireland in the long term, however a lot of foreign direct investment now flows into these new EU states as the cost of doing business in Ireland soars.(Ireland is now 39th of 40 in the latest competitiveness survey)

American multinationals taking advantage of Ireland’s low corporation tax account for a truly staggering 80% of Ireland’s exports this reliance on footloose cost conscious, non indigenous wealth creators is a high risk strategy. Nevertheless this Christmas the Irish will spend more than ever on imported goods and feel more financially secure than any of their European neighbors.

Reports from France and Germany on Tuesday showed that consumer spending had fallen in recent months and a nine-country European survey of Christmas consumer plans shows that consumers will be cautious in most countries, with the exception of Ireland and Spain

Gift spending intentions are globally slightly decreasing but Deloitte’s survey reveals a very varied Europe: where strong increases are expected in Ireland (+8 %) and Spain (+6 %), noticeable reductions are planned in Germany (-9 %), Portugal (-6 %), Italy (-6 %) and the Netherlands (-5 %). Belgium shows a relative stability (-1 %) in its spending intentions.

"The Irish economy continues to perform strongly, and as expected this feeds through to consumer confidence. Our survey shows that Irish consumers have a high degree of job security (77 per cent) and are optimistic about their personal financial situation, with 76 per cent indicating that they expect their financial situation to stay the same or improve over the next year. This contrasts sharply with the European average for job security (50 per cent) - indicating no improvement in the consumer confidence across our EU partners," said Cormac Hughes, Partner in Deloitte.

A very Happy Xmas