Mr. Kevin Figgis:

In our dealings with the Department of Health over recent years we have voiced these concerns at the national joint council. Each of the unions that are members of the national joint council is represented by a national official, who is a representative of all the thousands of workers those unions represent. We then work collectively on behalf of the entirety of the health service, the workforce. The challenge is that whereas in previous years we dealt with the Department of Health, whereby we met with people of a similar grade or a similar authority, that is no longer the case. We have voiced these concerns through the national joint council. We have had special meetings about this because of senior people not turning up to national meetings with union representatives. I do not mean to disrespect the staff the Department does send, but it sends in people who say they do not know the answers to our questions so they will have to ask them and come back to us. We then spend six, seven or eight weeks writing to them asking if they have an answer to the question we asked them. Then they will respond with one line. It is purposely designed to drag and delay. It is dodge, drag, delay. That is the way our engagement is. We have said to the Department of Health that it is not acceptable. With reference to, for example, the section 39 workers, the committee will remember that the Minister on the floor of the Dáil last year committed that the Department would engage with the unions through the WRC to resolve the section 39 dispute. We wrote within 24 hours asking the WRC to assist us. The HSE wrote only last week to state that it was willing to engage on that. The Department, when we have asked the question, has said, "They may be the Minister's comments but that may not be the official position." We are therefore constantly caught up in this rigmarole that goes on. A lot has to change in the manner in which the Department engages with the likes of us. If we are sending in senior people who can negotiate, engage and make decisions, we expect we will meet a similar person on the other side, and that is just not happening.