The fishing fleet in Northern Ireland is set to benefit from a new Fishing First Safety Management project.

The new project from UK-based grant-making charity The Seafarers’ Charity seeks to make fishing safer for all by ensuring vessels operate legally and crew have access to decent standards. This includes ensuring decent living and working conditions, maintaining appropriate labour standards and support for the human rights of all crew. It’s led by Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers’ Organisation (ANIFPO) and Northern Ireland Fish Producers’ Organisation (NIFPO).

The new initiative builds on the 2021 Fishing First Safety Management project in the Southwest of England, which was said to have improved the safety management practices of 50 fishing vessels.

Fisherman welfare

Fishing First Safety Management is an auditable safety management system for a fishing vessel that evidences compliance with legislation in respect of the management of health, safety and welfare onboard the vessel and helps build an onboard safety management system. It can be utilised by all vessel sizes and gear types.

This new project will audit up to 30 vessels’ safety management systems. In an addition to the original South West project, the Northern Ireland project will focus on increasing supply chain transparency for retailers and develop and test a new country-wide mechanism to identify and manage crew grievances.

“We want to develop a grievance reporting system within this project as we want to take action to improve the welfare and working conditions of our crew, many of whom are migrant workers,” says Alan McCulla OBE, chief executive of ANIFPO. “We recognise we need to make it easier to hear from them about any concerns and that this can help us to respond and ensure a safe and decent working environment for everyone.”

Fishing remains the highest-risk industry in the UK, says The Seafarers’ Charity. Despite many initiatives and the implementation of the International Labour Organization’s Work in Fishing Convention (ILO 188), there remains an unacceptable level of accidents, fatalities and welfare issues.

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