Mr. Paul Bell:

Regarding Deputy Kelly's questions, the first thing to say is that thousands of service users, their families and our members are following these proceedings. This is most important because we want to show that a transparent process is taking place and people can understand that they are not forgotten. Regarding the description of what is happening with employee turnover, pay, the challenges and the knock-on negative impact on the service user, there is not much we could add to that except to say that our members also feel that somewhere along the line, they are in that sandwich and are being ground down every day in terms of whether they remain loyal to their client and organisation or whether their loyalty will be pulled to look after their family by using their qualifications and going somewhere else. That is what is happening and that is the kernel of this problem. Some of our members are saying they feel somewhat ashamed when they move from their organisation. They are literally working in people's homes. They are in a community setting. They know the clients and their families or guardians. That is the kind of commitment we see. As everybody in this room knows, to sign up to work in such a service is a difficult decision. One needs to be a very special person to do that.

The question was posed as to the bloc, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive. I think there is a scale of blame for each organisation. The Health Service Executive, in considering its service plan for 2018, as I understand it, made an application to the Department of Health for a heading that would deal with anticipated pay movements to the sum of €68 million. We understand that €68 million is not for our members, but that some of that money could be used to commence pay restoration. In fairness, Ms Mo Flynn made it quite clear that approximately €13 million would kick this process off. We understood it was around €12 million on the basis of the number of whole-time equivalents who are entitled to pay restoration. The HSE was unsuccessful in that regard. We do not know the reason. We question that judgment. There are probably other organisations, with members and staff providing public services, which would have expected to be in that particular funding pot had that been granted. If those moneys had been granted, that would have given confidence not only to our members but "the industry", for the want of a better terms, that a process of dialogue could commence.

There is a notion being put around that to restore any moneys will be a complex process. We want to put on record today that if one looks at appendix A of the submission from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, it was not such a complex process to butcher the wages of our members and they did that unilaterally on the direction of the Health Service Executive. That has to be taken into consideration because our members are not confident about the bona fides of the Departments of Health and Public Expenditure and Reform or the Health Service Executive. We must remember also the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health are at pains to say that these organisations are stand alone organisations, that the staff who work for them are not public servants, however, in evidence today, members will see that the Health Service Executive continues to give direction and instruction to these organisations. One will see that also in appendices B and C, whereby the employer has been instructed by the HSE to proceed to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and to proceed to the Labour Court in order that there will be a civilised approach to addressing a dispute and for the outcome of the Labour Court to be honoured. In some cases, section 39 organisations, which wish to prevent our members from leaving and going elsewhere, have from their own resources paid some moneys. In some cases, they have been chastised by the HSE for doing that, because it is breaking away from the party line. I believe the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is responsible for this, the Department of Health has a role in it and the Health Service Executive has some accountability, because at the end of the day, the services are coming back to the Health Service Executive by default.

To lead into my response to the question put by Deputy Louise O'Reilly about a process, let us be very clear, SIPTU, in particular, has commenced balloting for strike action on the basis that we have eight labour court recommendation, processes entered into at the direction of the Health Service Executive. We expect Labour Court recommendations to be honoured. The greater economy, employees in other organisations, be they private, retail or otherwise, expect labour recommendations to be honoured. I suggest that the members of both Houses of the Oireachtas expect Labour Court recommendations to be honoured.

In direct response to Deputy Louise O'Reilly, we have not been offered a viable process to address those issues. SIPTU, INMO and I understand Unite have Labour Court recommendations that we need implemented. The communications from the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive are indicating a number of things. We will have a process where we will talk the whole thing to death but we will not come to a conclusion. For the record, the process that SIPTU seeks is to have discussions with a beginning, a middle and an end and is to be transparent and with integrity. A confidence building measure has to be that we get into a process where there is an understanding that the Labour Court recommendations are key.

A final point that has also been made in some of these utterances from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the Department of Health and HSE is that these cuts did not have to be passed on to staff members. We absolutely reject that. They instructed that this would happen. We are left in this position in trying to defend our membership, the people who work in the service, protect the service and, most importantly, protect the service in communities. We look forward to generating a process that would basically satisfy the needs of all parties but it has to be viable and that is why we are in the very difficult position where we are saying that on 14 February, our members will be forced into a strike position which is absolutely unprecedented and which is causing a high level of anxiety among our union membership because of the people they serve. In fact, in some cases, we will have to agree contingency terms that it will be difficult to understand what kind of action we can actually take.

If there are any points I have missed, Chairman, I will have no difficulty in clarifying them.