The High Court has refused an international transport workers’ federation’s request for an interim order changing a work-permission scheme for non-EEA fishing crew, pending a full hearing of its challenge.
In a judgment delivered on 7 December 2018, Mr Justice Tony O’Connor said the application sought to restrain the Minister for Justice and Equality from granting or reviewing further permissions conditional on a worker remaining with a particular employer or working on a particular vessel. In effect, the federation sought a mandatory interim order requiring the Minister to alter the Atypical Working Scheme.
The court said the federation’s standing to bring the proceedings would be a significant issue at the plenary hearing, but did not decide that issue on the interim application. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission had permission to intervene as amicus curiae. The judge understood its position to be that it highlighted the importance of the issues, rather than supported the application for interim relief.
The federation argued that the scheme’s employment conditions contributed to a real and immediate risk of trafficking or severe labour exploitation. It pointed to Garda investigations involving 15 former scheme participants and affidavits from four fishermen, who described alleged exploitation, threats, employment-law breaches and, in one case, an injury requiring hospital treatment. Those were accounts presented in support of the application; the court did not make final findings on them.
The State disputed the claimed risk and set out possible consequences of changing the scheme. A Department official said the employment-offer condition reflected wider government policy and could not be varied without wider consequences. The State also warned that suspending the scheme could leave current and prospective participants uncertain about their status, potentially expose some to repatriation, and reduce protections available to workers classified as self-employed share fishermen.
The judge said the evidence presented at this interim stage did not satisfy him that there was a strong probability that the alleged harm would arise solely or substantially because of the condition the federation wanted removed. He stressed that this was not a final finding of fact, and that the application depended in part on speculation about effects on others.
He refused the interlocutory injunction. The decision determined only the interim application; the underlying proceedings were to continue to an early plenary hearing, where the broader claims and the standing issue remained to be addressed.