Maintenance of Bermuda’s ferries is being outsourced by the Department of Marine and Ports, union leaders said yesterday.And workers had brought a number of issues to management to no avail, Sinclair Samuels, president of the Marine and Ports division said at a press conference held at the Bermuda Industrial Union Headquarters.“The issues at Marine and Ports are not due to the workers not being able to do what has to be done,” he said.Mr Samuels added that the workers were perfectly capable and trained to do the maintenance work.“We just wanted to let you the public know that we are not allowed to do our jobs, and we are very capable of doing so,” he said.“So the state of the vessels could be in better shape.”BIU leader Chris Furbert said that meetings had been held with the Transport Minister but the issues had not been resolved.“In the end it could be a health and safety issue for the crew and passengers. These things ought to be resolved in a timely manner,” Mr Furbert said.The news comes in the wake of a report by this newspaper that one of the ferries, Coralita, was found to have been operating with an expired safety certificate last month.The Department said at the time that a certificate of survey confirmed that the ferry was in good working order and safe to operate. But it was still in operation because another ferry was being maintained.Mr Furbert pointed out at yesterday’s press conference that maintenance should be done during the off season.Contacted by The Royal Gazette, Scott Simmons, Director of Marine and Ports said that maintenance is actually a year round function and that the Department did use outside expertise where needed to service the boats.“The primary maintenance for the boats is certainly done here in Bermuda by the Department. And we do bring in subcontractors to assist with system repairs that are beyond our ability to repair,” he said.“A classic example is where we used two different contractors from overseas to service jet propulsion units. Another example would be the air conditioning units when two (local) contractors were brought in to assist.”He noted that two workers were being trained to do air conditioning work in-house.“Most of the routine maintenance for the boats are all done by the Department staff,” he said.