Dublin People - Warning over laying off harbour policemen

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Warning over laying off harbour policemen

Thursday, 24 April 2008

Serious concerns have been expressed that security may be compromised at Dun Laoghaire Harbour following a proposal to make police officers stationed there redundant.
Southside People has learned that the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company is proposing to offer voluntary redundancy packages to at least three harbour policemen and to eliminate night shifts for the harbour police altogether.
It is understood that the redundancy proposals are part of a bid to cut costs at the company. Stena Line is the only commercial operator using Dún Laoghaire Port and is currently pressing the harbour company to review its port charges, which are understood to be in the region of e6 million a year.
A letter seen by Southside People, sent from the port operations manager to the harbour police on behalf of harbour company management, outlines the proposals.
“The following harbour police manning proposals are based on the assumption that the force is to be retained even if there is a further reduction to the Stena schedule or elimination of a ferry service altogether,” the letter states.
The document includes the proposal to reduce the harbour police manpower from the current number of 17 to 14 and says that this is to be achieved by redundancy payments.
Furthermore, it states: “It is intended to immediately eliminate the existing night shift pending outcome of negotiations in regard to the minimum manning proposal outlined above.”
If the redundancy package was accepted it would effectively mean that there would be no harbour police force on duty from 10pm to 7am raising concerns that this will leave the harbour unsafe and inadequately patrolled at night.
One of the harbour police officers Southside People spoke to said he believed the harbour company would replace the existing officers with contract security guards for the duration of night shifts. He outlined his concerns if this arose.
“We have powers of arrest,” he revealed. “We prevent a lot of anti-social behaviour incidents from happening and deal with them if they do happen. But it is not just security at the marinas that we are responsible for; we check trawlers coming in during the night and we have even had to deal with a few suicides down here.
“They [security guards] wouldn’t have the proper powers of arrest that we have and even if they did apprehend someone it would be a false arrest.”
He added: “We have been trained the very same as the gardaí. They [the harbour company management] seem to think the security part of this proposal is a non-issue but they know themselves they couldn’t operate safely without harbour police on nights.”
In addition, he said he feared that the harbour company could offer more than three officers a redundancy package and reduce the force by half.
Deputy Eamon Gilmore (Lab) said he has written to the harbour company about the proposals but has yet to receive a response.
“In my opinion the harbour company would be in breach of its statutory responsibility if it was to have no harbour police on duty at night,” he said.
“If they attempt to do that they will make the harbour a no-go area between those hours. Secondly they will be putting the harbour facilities at risk during those times.”
Oliver McDonagh of the marine section in SIPTU said that the union was “not happy” with the proposals and that they would be entering into negotiations with the harbour company in the “very near future”.
In a statement, the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company said: “The company is in discussion with the harbour police and their union and until such time as these discussions have concluded is not in a position to comment.”

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