Late last year, Irish Ferries provoked a bitter feud with the unions when it offered its Irish crew a voluntary redundancy package and then replaced them with cheaper non-national workers.

But under existing legislation which guarantees workers two weeks pay per year of service when they lose their jobs, companies are entitled to a government rebate of over half of the cost of the redundancy payments it makes to its departing staff.

But this rebate is only paid out if the redundancies are genuine while Irish Ferries replaced its Irish crew with cheaper non-national workers.

Minister Martin said this week that he had referred the Irish Ferries application to the Attorney General "as a matter of some urgency for advice on whether or not a genuine redundancy situation exists in this case and whether or not the rebate can be paid".