Islanders want Swinney to ‘just fix the bloody ferries’, says Sarwar

Islanders want First Minister John Swinney to “just fix the bloody ferries”, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has said.

The First Minister was visiting the Western Isles on Wednesday while the country was in the grip of a ferry crisis, with six vessels out of service on Tuesday.

Ahead of the visit, Mr Swinney announced plans for a £10 million resilience fund for island businesses and to increase local representation on the board of publicly-owned operator CalMac.

But his pledge was met with derision by his Scottish Labour rival.

Speaking to the Press Association in Edinburgh, Mr Sarwar said: “I saw today that John Swinney is announcing this new resilience fund if he is re-elected as First Minister.

“Honestly, people on the islands will just be saying, ‘just fix the bloody ferries’.

“We don’t need a resilience fund from the SNP, we need to replace the SNP, fix the bloody mess and deliver for our island communities.”

He said Labour would create a single ferries agency to replace the various bodies involved in procuring and running the vessels, to ensure there is “clear accountability” for ministers.

Speaking to PA in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, the First Minister said: “I’m in the Western Isles to take part in the SNP election campaign and to set out the importance that I attach to the island communities in Scotland and to make sure their needs are serviced.

“One of those issues that’s been of significant has been the issue of ferry connections, and I’m conscious of the disruption that’s been experienced by some of our island communities as a consequence of the ferry issues.

“I want to make sure, first of all, that the action is in place to support island communities, to make sure they’ve got all the ferry connections that are required.

“But also that we recognise the disruption that’s been experienced.

“Within the first 20 days of a re-elected SNP government, I would establish an operational resilience fund of £10 million to provide financial support to organisations and businesses that have been disrupted as a consequence of the ferry issues and I would want to express my apology to islanders for any disruption that they have experienced.”

Mr Swinney, who arrived on the ferry from Ullapool, heard from business owners about the impact of the ferry disruption during his time on the island on Wednesday.

Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay visited the ferry terminal in Troon, where the Glen Sannox – one of the ferries which has been sporadically out of service in recent months – sails from.

He said the First Minister should “hang his head in shame” at the state of the ferry network.

Asked what he would have done differently, the Tory leader said: “I’ll tell you what we wouldn’t have done, we wouldn’t have wasted half-a-billion pounds on two dodgy ferries.

“Then John Swinney turns up a few weeks before an election and offers a £10 million sweetener to try and silence islanders who, quite frankly, should be furious.”

On Wednesday, CalMac issued a revised deployment plan to deal with the unavailability of four major and four small vessels.

The problems were eased when the Glen Sannox returned to service on the Arran route on Wednesday afternoon.

CalMac chief executive Duncan Mackison said: “In the coming days, our priority is to ensure that, wherever possible, every community has a service and to provide as much certainty as we can as to what that service looks like.

“The plan we’ve put in place in redeploying MV Isle of Islay allows us to restore two key routes – Barra and the Little Minch – to normality from Thursday, and we’ll draft in MV Alfred to cover Islay.

“We’ve set out plans through to next Friday, the day before MV Hebrides is scheduled to return from planned maintenance.

“Her return triggers a cascade of vessels that allows us to restore normal service levels to a number of island communities.

“Until then, we’re pushing hard to speed up repairs on unavailable vessels and I want to assure those who rely on us that we’re doing everything in our gift to improve service levels.”