I am in total agreement with the Chair. I have not referred once to the rights and wrongs of the liquidation. I am simply talking about the plight of a group of students in the regional technical college in Cork who were studying marine science and who now find themselves without their fees. I mentioned the Minister for Communications because the fees were in that area rather than in the area of education. However, if the presence of the Minister for Education is an indication that her Department are undertaking to pay the fees of the students who are being financed by Irish Shipping and are undertaking responsibility for the 11 people concerned I shall be delighted. The number is made up of seven, two and two. Regardless of which Department pay up, it is a mere bagatelle so far as those 11 students are concerned.
I move now to the plight of the radio officers. They are in a some what different position. Members of the House, including the Minister, will have received some correspondence from them. Their case briefly is that when they have finished their course in the RTC in Cork they must spend six months at sea. The big difficulty is that they are not regarded as qualified until they have completed those six months. If they do not succeed in being able to go to sea for those six months they must take the examinations again. That is the very serious plight of these young people.
The general opinion is that the standard achieved by these students is one of the top, if not the top, qualification in the world. Apparently the shipping companies have been very impressed by the standard of the young people who have pursued these courses as they have been by the graduates in marine science. I understand that in that part of the course which they pursue at Plymouth they emerge top of their class in terms of standard of education and commitment, a standard that was higher than the standard that could be produced in that internationally well known college at Plymouth.
In fairness to the students they have been active in their own interest but in a sense they do not consider themselves as able to cope with the problem and that is why it is important to bring it before the House. Agreement was reached last year that Irish Shipping would take these radio officers and that AnCO would pay them a token wage. This caused some trouble with a trade union. One can understand a trade union being concerned about having fully qualified members ready to take up jobs while students were being used and being paid at AnCO rates that would be much lower than the full pay for a radio officer. Consequently, the union fought against the agreement. The students felt themselves a little overpowered by the company they found themselves in, in an established trade union looking after the interests of its members in the shipping companies. That is why this letter came to the Members of this House. The students do not want to interfere with the livelihood of the radio officers or members of the trade union but they too have a problem now that Irish Shipping has gone. The funding of the 11 students is a mere bagatelle, and the Minister should exert himself to have these students placed with the shipping companies that are left or to have them placed outside of shipping companies. The Irish Continental Line is in a never never land, which is the problem with the whole business. The B & I is a company which the Minister for Communications runs to a certain extent. The companies still in operation should undertake to employ these radio officers. They can be employed alongside older trade union members and need not necessarily cause any trade problem.
I do not know if the Minister for Education's writ covers that area, but she could pass the message on to the Minister for Communications that a system should be immediately devised so that these people can be taken on by Irish Continental Lines and by B & I. There is also the Belfast Ferries which is owned by an amalgam of interests, 49 per cent of it owned by the old Irish Shipping and 25 per cent of the total owned by the AIB. There is enough goodwill in the Department of Communications and in the Department of Education. These Departments with the Department of Labour could exercise themselves to get the 11 students placed in the various shipping companies. I think there will be a residual strategic Irish shipping company established which could also provide them with an opportunity for their six months' training as radio officers.
Deputy Dan Wallace said that he would like to get a few minutes of my time, and I will give him just that. I have hopes that between the Department of Education and the Department of Communications these students will be seen to.
