Ms Suzanne Morrissey Forde:

I thank the Deputy. The Deputy said that the Minister said section 39 organisations are private and that we can pay, not what we want but that we do not have to pay in accordance with the consolidated HSE pay scales. However, when we sign our service-level arrangement each year, we have to sign off that we do not pay above any current HSE pay scale. We really do adhere to the pay scales of the HSE. Most section 39 agencies I know may not be on the current HSE pay scale but they do adhere to some sort of HSE pay scale. In Delta Centre, we are on the 2021 HSE pay scale at the moment. Part of our service-level arrangement with the HSE is that we adhere to a pay scale and will not pay above the current HSE pay scale. We would not have the autonomy to pay a higher pay scale to try to recruit staff who might be in a section 38 agency. We do not pay above those pay scales.

If we were to put in place the current 2024 pay scales the HSE and section 38 organisations operate, in Delta Centre we would definitely run into a deficit within our budgets. We did an exercise a while ago for our board to see if we came up to the same conditions as the HSE in terms of maternity, paying Saturday night premiums and waking nights. It would cost us in the range of €1 million just to match conditions alone. That is without bringing the current pay scales up.

Deputy Tully asked earlier about people leaving the social care service and that it is even hard for the HSE itself and section 38 organisations to recruit. Part of that is probably that on some of the current pay scales, even the 2024 levels, some areas like the care system pay scale is probably still starting out on a low enough level. The hourly rate sometimes does not compare with other industries. They could get a job somewhere else where they are paid a higher hourly rate than they would be starting within a service like ours. That is probably part of the reason some people are moving away from social care and everyone within the sector is finding it hard to recruit and retain staff at the moment.

Like Ability West said, we definitely have the right fundamentals in place but it is probably getting the resources behind it to drive forward on it and get person-centred-----