Mr. Kevin Figgis:

I thank the Chair and the Deputy for her questions. The long Covid piece is a real challenge. People quickly forget, because we have been dealing with Covid for so long, that at the start of the pandemic we did not have the PPE, training, awareness, etc. A lot of the people we represent spoke about environments where, as we said in our submission, PPE was shared and reused. People were even told it was being prioritised for other grades and not their grade. It was not a good situation.

The unions have worked closely together on this. Last year we raised the decision of the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to remove the scheme in place for public servants. We asked for a scheme specifically for health workers. To my understanding, the HSE was referencing a figure of 200 healthcare workers having long Covid. We sought engagement and the Minister at the time said there would be no cliff edge in regard to 30 June. The committee may remember this.

The difficulty is that this is a decision made by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. We then engaged with the HSE which is the employer and has no mandate to agree anything of outside of its control, which this probably is. We then had the Department of Health stating that it did not make the decision. We are caught in the middle of all of this. The group of unions collectively referred this matter to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, because we have had no engagement.

Ultimately, the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform is an inch longer than an arm's length away and is out of reach. The Department of Health and the HSE have said they have no space or mandate to engage.

The challenge in regard to advising members is that we are obviously telling them this is an active issue for us and we are seeking to advance the matter in order to agree a scheme through the WRC. What is really important is the response from the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, which clearly outlines that our Government is out of touch with regard to what is going on in Europe, the EU Commission, etc., where long Covid is being recognised as an occupational disease as well as the fact there is a need to protect health workers. That is what we are trying to achieve in the review.