Mr. Joe Meany:

The issue of recruitment was addressed by this committee back in March. It was acknowledged by the HSE as an issue. The issue of recruitment and retention for us has been the single biggest issue for delivering quality-based services over the past two years. To ensure there are trained, consistent staff across services providing new directional supports, we require equity of pay. We will be repeating ourselves here but equity of terms and conditions across the sector, including maternity and premium payments, are so important because people are choosing with their feet. Our workforce is young and predominantly female. If they wish to apply for a mortgage or maternity leave, which employer will they choose? Will they choose the employer that has fully funded maternity leave or not? Will they go to the employer who is paying 2024 pay scales or 2021 pay scales? They will go for employers who have higher pay scales. In one 15-month period during the past 24 months, we recruited 87 people. Think about the workload to recruit 87 people, the number of interviews and the amount of added work. When we should be focusing on delivering services, we are focusing on recruiting. I spoke to one service provider during the past year and they told me they recruited an entire front-line staff during a 12-month period. There was a full 100% turnover. I read a recent extract from a recruitment website regarding our service which said it was a great place to work but had poor pay, almost zero increments, and pay was not up to standard by any means. This type of environment is out there and so people in section 39 agencies will struggle hugely to recruit in that kind of environment. What we do is we recruit, and while all people go for all jobs, the most qualified and experienced staff tend to go for higher paid jobs and are getting those jobs. Section 39 organisations often get newly qualified people who stay with us for a year or two and then move on to get the better paid jobs. It is a huge issue for us.

With regard to the other issues mentioned, I agree with Dr. Harnett and would welcome the occupational guidance for people in special schools.

With regard to changing need, Dr. Harnett has outlined the fact it exists and is a real issue for us. We have people from when we started in 1990. A lot of people were 20, 21 or 22 years old at that stage. Now it is 35 years later and many of those people have added conditions and they would have come into us on a capitation payment of maybe €5,000 or €7,000 and it is so far away from their support needs now and yet, as Dr. Harnett said, there is no funding. Not only that, there is no mechanism to measure that support need because the profiling tool can only be used for school leavers. There is no agreed mechanism. In 2011 to 2015, the NDA studied four assessment tools. It wrote a report and informed the Department at the time. It was going to be announced that a national resource allocation tool would be agreed and we are still waiting.