A P&O ferry has been detained in Northern Ireland “due to failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training”, according to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA).
The agency said the ship, the European Causeway, was impounded at the port of Larne.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps said that the ferry was detained for being “unfit to sail”.
Shapps wrote on Twitter: “Following my instruction to inspect all P&O vessels prior to entering back into service, the MCA has detained a ship for being unfit to sail. I will not compromise the safety of these vessels and P&O will not be able to rush inexperienced crew through training.”
The MCA said: “The vessel will remain under detention until all these issues are resolved by P&O Ferries. Only then will it be reinspected.”
Detention of ships is based on concerns over their safety and to prevent them going to sea.
Karl Turner, Labour MP for Hull East, wrote on Twitter: “It gets worse for P&O Ferries, news just in that the European Causeway on the Cairnryan-Larne route has failed her Port State Inspection.
“The vessel is arrested and detained by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in Larne.”
Earlier this week, an inspection was carried out by the MCA on a P&O ferry docked in Hull to ensure agency staff brought in to replace 800 sacked workers can operate it safely.
Downing Street has called for the chief executive of P&O Ferries to resign over the sacking of the staff and pledged to push through legislation next week to force the company to reverse the move and pay its crew the minimum wage.
Peter Hebblethwaite admitted to MPs on Thursday that his company broke the law by sacking the 800 workers without consultation.
The transport union RMT said it welcomed the detention of the European Causeway and it demanded the government “seize the entire fleet” of P&O vessels.
General secretary Mick Lynch said: “The seizing of the European Causeway by the MCA tonight shows that the gangster capitalist outfit P&O are not fit and proper to run a safe service after the jobs massacre.
“This mob should be barred, their ships impounded and the sacked crews reinstated to get these crucial ferry routes back running safely.”
Alliance MLA for East Antrim Stewart Dickson welcomed the impounding of the ferry as a safety measure.
“It’s not like the crew of an airplane getting off one easyJet and getting on to the next one where the controls are the exactly the same, and everything is in the same place,” he told PA.
“No two ships are the same, and you cannot just fly a crew in and expect them to be able to sail a ship. Every control will be in a different place, but particularly all those health and safety drills that have to be gone through, everything from lifeboat stations to how each item of equipment operates. It seemed to me it was going to be very difficult for staff to be able to take on that role in such a short period of time.
“I am absolutely delighted they have [impounded the ship]. This isn’t vengeance against P&O, it’s about passenger safety and the safety of the crew as well.”
