The Irish commercial fishing industry is worth around €1.22bn annually to the Irish economy.
It employs around 16,000 people in fishing, processing, sales and marketing and relies on labourers from countries such as Ghana, Egypt and Indonesia.
Nationals of non-EU countries require an employment permit or other worker permission to work in Ireland.
Workers on fishing vessels are not currently an eligible category of workers for these permits.
In 2015, the Irish Fish Producers Organisation argued that 1000 fishermen from non-EU countries need permits and in 2016, the Department of Justice released a temporary residency permit to those non-EU fishermen.
The residency does not allow them to reunite with their families. In addition, the residence permission obliged each fisherman to stick with the same employer till the end of the contract.
Some fishermen have won cases against their employers for exploitation.
In 2018, the International Transport Workers' Federation brought legal proceedings against Ireland for failure to protect migrant fishers against exploitation and human trafficking in the fishing fleet.
In April 2019, those proceedings were compromised on the basis of a detailed agreement which included a provision that Ireland would properly transpose the rules on working time in the Agreement to implement ILO Convention 188 on Work in Fishing.
In May 2022 the fishermen protested in front of Dáil to call on the Government to improve their circumstances through a few changes.
Michael O'Brien of the International Transport Federation (ITF) told the Irish Mirror that scrapping the Atypical Work Permit Scheme in favour of fishermen being employed under the more advantageous Critical Skills Permit system is very needed by the fishermen.
The government should provide a path to Visa Stamp 4 and full labour market access for all migrant fishermen, both documented and undocumented, Mr O’Brien said.
He added that ending migrant fisherman exploitation by a number of means outlined in the ITF's submission to the review, including the correct transposition of the Working Time at Sea Directive to combat illegal and unsafe excessive working hours.
The Department of Justice told the Irish Mirror that officials from this Department reviewed the Atypical Working Scheme for non-EEA fishermen, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
The review has concluded and its recommendations are being considered to bring recommendations to the Government.
In the meantime, the Oversight Committee, chaired by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine, continues to oversee the scheme as currently structured.
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