Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly. I thank the three Deputies for raising it and expressing their concerns.

The overarching policy of the Government is to support older people to live in dignity and with independence in their own homes and communities for as long as possible. This is clearly what they and everybody in this House want. We also have patients who are in genuine need of residential care, either on a long-stay or short-stay basis. The HSE is responsible for the delivery of health and personal social services, including those at facilities such as St Finbarr's Hospital. The hospital is part of the older persons social care directorate and one of 24 hospitals in the Cork Kerry Community Hospitals Group.

The HSE has worked with the Irish Nursing and Midwives Organisation in recent months on staffing levels and ratios at the hospital. HSE management has undertaken a review of staffing in consultation with the nursing unions, with a view to ensuring safe and adequate staffing levels and a skills mix to meet the care needs of the residents in long-term care and the rehabilitation wards. It included a review of resource management, the skills mix and service costs. The executive proposes to reconfigure the staffing levels and skills mix at the hospital to provide for optimum use of approved staffing resources and a reduction in the over-reliance on overtime and agency costs. The current proposal, if implemented, will potentially provide for a reduction of 16.5 nursing whole-time equivalents and 5.1 health care assistant whole-time equivalents. This will eliminate the reliance on the use of agency staff and maximise overall direct employment within the hospital.

The HSE has assured the Department that there are no plans to reduce the number of directly employed staff at the hospital and certainly there are no plans for redundancies. The Department understands the executive has demonstrated that staffing levels in terms of WTEs have increased in the past few years and that HSE management is satisfied that the reconfigured staffing levels will be adequate to provide the service being delivered.

The engagement between management, staff, the INMO and SIPTU is underpinned by the terms of the national public service stability agreement. Agreement was not reached locally and notification was issued for the commencement of industrial action. The matter progressed to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, conciliation services and the parties met in December 2017. Following subsequent correspondence and discussions, an interim arrangement was put in place without prejudice to either party’s position and this has provided for the deferral of any industrial action, with the agreement to engage on the change programme as soon as possible. This was in place until yesterday, 31 January.

A conciliation conference has been organised by the WRC for 8 February 2018. Management has agreed to an extension of the interim arrangements up to and including the date of the WRC conciliation conference and to not later than Thursday, 15 February which will allow a reasonable period for the parties to consider any proposal emerging from the WRC process. This issue is being addressed by the HSE and key stakeholders through an agreed process, and officials from the Department will continue to monitor this situation carefully. The HSE has been asked to keep the Minister of State, Deputy Daly, updated on developments.

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