P&O services between Liverpool and Dublin resume two days after 800 workers sacked by Zoom

Labour MP called the resumed sailings a ‘kick in the teeth for sacked seafarers’

P&O delivered the news in an online meeting. (Getty Images)

P&O has said its services between Liverpool and Dublin have resumed, two days after the company suddenly sacked 800 workers.

The ferry company suspended all of its services on Thursday just hours before the staff were told they would be replaced with agency workers.

P&O said in a post on Twitter at 3.24pm on Saturday that services had resumed between the two cities.

The company said that any customers with affected travel would be contacted by their port teams.

Earlier on Saturday, the P&O team had told customers: “Ferry services are unable to run for the next few days.

“We are advising travellers of alternative arrangements. We will update every three hours with the operational situation.”

P&O sacked the workers in an online meeting on Thursday and had security guards on hand to take crew members off ships.

Employees spoke of people carrying their bags off vessels in floods of tears. One 46-year-old P&O crew member, who had worked for the company for 30 years, said he was concerned over how he would support his family.

“There were grown men in tears worrying what to do about their mortgages. We’ve been treated abysmally,” he told The Guardian.

Labour MP for Sefton Central, Bill Esterson, said on Saturday that P&O restarting sailings between Liverpool and Dublin was a “kick in the teeth for sacked seafarers”.

He added: “Let alone safety concerns. Government must suspend licences and contracts with P&O until the dispute is resolved.”

Labour is urging the government to publish legal advice it received on whether P&O broke the law when it sacked 800 workers.

The party has asked if there are any legal moves ministers could take to reverse the decision to make so many staff redundant without consultation.

P&O Ferries defended the move and said on Thursday that it aims “to have the first of our services running again in the next day or two”.

It said that “the teams escorting the seafarers off our vessels were totally professional in handling this difficult task with all appropriate sensitivity”.