Nearly 40 staff brutally fired by P&O Ferries live in Scotland.
Chief Executive Peter Hebblethwaite made the admission on the eve of giving evidence to MSPs about the mass job losses.
P&O Ferries has been blasted for sacking around 800 seafarers by video message and replacing them with cheaper agency workers
The decision has caused havoc with the Cairnryan-Larne line, which has been suspended, and attracted condemnation from the UK and Scottish Governments.
Hebblethwaite last week admitted the company had broken the law by not consulting the unions ahead of the plan.
In a letter to Holyrood’s Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, the CEO repeated many of the arguments he had already made defending the decision.
He claimed the business would not have survived were it not for “changed crewing arrangements” and described the move as a “last resort”.
Hebblethwaite added that, of the 786 seafarers dismissed across three related companies, 39 live in Scotland.
It comes as Hebblethwaite insisted he will not reverse the decision to sack the staff despite being given “one further opportunity” by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.
He wrote to the Cabinet minister claiming the request “ignores the situation’s fundamental and factual realities”.
Re-employing the sacked workers on their previous wages would “deliberately cause the company’s collapse, resulting in the irretrievable loss of an additional 2,200 jobs”, the letter stated.
“I cannot imagine that you would wish to compel an employer to bring about its own downfall, affecting not hundreds but thousands of families.”
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