The Irish transport minister has said there is “relief” that there were no fatalities among the 14 people found in a refrigerated container at an Irish port.

Gardai have launched a human trafficking investigation after nine men, three women and two girls were discovered in the container at Rosslare Europort at around 3am on Monday.

UK authorities alerted gardai and a plan was put in place that would see emergency services waiting for their arrival at the Co Wexford port.

They were assessed by medics before being transferred for processing by the international protection service.

We have to do everything we can to try and avoid such carriage and passage because it is dangerous

The ship’s crew are also assisting An Garda Siochana with these inquiries.

The Garda National Immigration Bureau and local Wexford gardai are working with their counterparts in Europol on the case, and have asked anyone with information, “no matter how insignificant”, to get in contact.

The country’s premier Leo Varadkar said the first response is a humanitarian effort to check they are in good health, which they are believed to be.

They are then entitled to choose to undertake a voluntary return or apply for asylum.

On Wednesday, Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan said: “We have to do everything we can to try and avoid such carriage and passage because it is dangerous and a risk to the lives of those who are put on or go on to those trucks.

“We have to do what we can to reduce it but you cannot completely eliminate it. We’ve seen that with the UK Government and France, trying to stop that passage.

“It is practically impossible to completely avoid it.”

He said people are making the crossing because they are desperate and Ireland has obligations under international law to provide refuge where appropriate.

Speaking to RTE’s Morning Ireland, Mr Ryan added: “We also stand up for human rights in our country. We’ve always stood by the UN charter for human rights, central to our position.

“Part of that is we have to respect and manage, to the best of our ability, refugee rights.”

Ger Carthy, a local councillor and operations resource manager with the National Ambulance Service, said one of the occupants of the refrigerated “roll-on/roll-off” container on board the ship bound for Rosslare Europort managed to make an emergency call at approximately 1am.

It could have been a very different outcome

He said the call was picked up by the UK Coastguard and patched towards the Irish emergency services where a multi-agency response was triggered.

“It seems to be quite a challenging and very dangerous trip for anyone to make but I believe they had difficulty breathing within the refrigerated container and may have had to break a hole in the side of it to access some air from within the ship itself.”

Mr Carthy added: “Thankfully, we didn’t have an outcome similar to what we had in the early 2000s when a container came into Rosslare and there was a number of deceased people in it.”

He said many people put into these containers may have expected to be going to the UK, but that the journey to Rosslare would have taken 30 hours.

“It could have been a very different outcome.”

He said he expected there would be an increased frequency of such crossings given the global migration crisis.

On the same programme, spokesman for the Irish Road Haulage Association Eugene Drennan said: “We’re absolutely relieved in the haulage industry this morning.

“The company involved is a long-standing, quality Irish family firm and is so relieved there are no fatalities. By a stroke of luck, we are lucky in this.”

He said the container was loaded onto a truck south of Paris.

Mr Drennan said the driver travelled north through France and took a break in a service station as required by law, but completed checks in the following morning.

He said: “These people were put on board by a very professional gang. They had to be helped because the truck was fully sealed. It was a solid-side refrigerated trailer.”

Mr Drennan said those who accessed the trailer would have to have knowledge of the locks and seals on the roof or rear of the container.

The container was brought to Zeebrugge for a direct crossing to Ireland.

Mr Drennan said the criminal gang may have expected the vehicle, which had an Irish number plate, to be travelling on a shorter journey of Calais-Dover to the UK.