Mick Lynch (Photo by Guy Smallman/Getty Images)P&O Ferries is to close its Liverpool-Dublin route after it was unable to secure a berth at Port of Liverpool. The Merseyside port’s operator Peel Ports confirmed that on the expiry of P&O’s contract later this year, their Irish Sea service would cease.
Mick Lynch, RMT General Secretary has slammed the decision. He said: “P&O Ferries said they unlawfully sacked nearly 800 seafarers to protect jobs elsewhere in their UK operation.
"This latest attack on maritime jobs and skills proves that Tory Ministers were wrong to believe P&O Ferries and its CEO Peter Hebblethwaite.
"He along with his senior management team, have shown that they are not only prepared to break employment law in order to please their owners in Dubai but that they cannot be trusted to operate economically vital ro-pax ferry services, blaming everyone else but themselves for their abject failures.
"The British government should scrap any shipping contracts they have with P&O and begin the process of banning them from operating in UK waters, as a matter of urgency."
P&O have so far declined to respond to Mr Lynch’s criticisms, and claim they were forced into the decision by “the port provider”.
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