Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I too welcome the opportunity to add my few words of support in order to have this Private Members' motion to restore the pay of section 39 employees carried. I commend Deputy Dara Calleary for initiating the process to expedite a positive outcome. I welcome the service providers and staff present in the Visitors Gallery, especially the representatives I met from St. Joseph's Foundation in Charleville.

Day in and day out, legislators have been urged to close the gender pay gap and pay new entrants to the workplace the same wages as those in similar employment who do the same work. There is blatant pay discrimination against the staff of section 39 organisations who effectively carry out the same duties, engage in the same practices and deliver the same services as staff in section 38 organisations.

Section 39 organisations, like their sister institutions, accepted severe cuts in funding during the economic downturn. The majority of the cuts were to the pay package of the employees and management who, it must be acknowledged, did well to deliver their services during the recession-hit days. As stated in a letter received from SIPTU, their members' pay was reduced in 2010 and 2012 directly in line with the reductions affecting their public service equivalents as a direct consequence of an historical pay link. The historical pay link is the issue.

On 8 November 2017 the Taoiseach confirmed to my party leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, that there was an established pay link between section 39 agencies and the public service. The Government and the HSE have been hiding behind the bloc grant allocation mechanism, which is like throwing sheep to wolves. It was a matter of making the management of section 39 organisations make the hard call on how to divide their spend.

We must also acknowledge that many section 39 organisations have gone above and beyond the call of duty in facilitating the provision of extra services with no extra financial resources. An example is St. Joseph's Foundation in Charlevill, which came to the aid of the HSE when Grove House in Cork was closed. While the foundation took in some residents, the appropriate budgetary funding did not follow. I ask the Minister to sign the draft for the pay increase.

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