James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I lend my support to Deputy Ó Caoláin. This is my third or fourth Topical Issue debate in a row where I did not have the line Minister present. I had an urgent matter in Wexford this morning and I drove back up but I may as well have phoned it in as come here to debate the issue.

I raise the issue of St. Aidan's services in Gorey and I understand that this voluntary organisation is threatened with imminent closure. St. Aidan's services in Gorey provides day, residential, respite, preschool, elderly and training services across Wexford and also provides meals on wheels. It has been in its current location for 36 years and was established in 1968. It has over 300 service users per annum and has 130 staff, yet this week the staff will be paid on a delayed basis because of what St. Aidan's says is a shortage of promised funding from the HSE.

The service users, their families and the staff have been informed that the centre is in imminent danger of closure unless its finances are addressed as a matter of urgency and the issue has reached a crisis point. As the Minister of State can imagine, the information that has been provided has caused a huge amount of distress to the staff, the service users and their families.

I am told that a core deficit was identified in 2016 and the HSE agreed in 2016 to provide funding to the organisation to address it. The deficit arose as a result of the organisation providing HSE services without HSE funding. Additional costs have been incurred as a result of upgrading that was required to meet Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, standards.

This year the HSE has a budget of €17 billion and the money required to keep vital services open and 130 staff employed is a minuscule part of that. The high quality experience of the staff would be irreplaceable should this service shut down and the cost of providing an alternative service to service users will be far in excess of the money that is not being provided.

St. Aidan's in Gorey is not looking for special treatment, it is simply looking for fairness and for the HSE to honour the agreement it says the HSE made with it. St. Aidan's provides outstanding care in Gorey and also to the service users in Enniscorthy, New Ross, Wexford town and throughout the south east.

The latest information I have received this week is that the staff who were meant to be paid today will not be paid until tomorrow but the HSE has come and looked for a €100,000 rebate to be paid in December which would be deducted from December's payment. I am being told that effectively means there will not be enough money to pay the staff in December.

This issue has been going on for four years, various people have raised it during that time and there is no resolution in sight. It is a matter of urgency that this matter is addressed. It has reached crisis point and as I understand it the service is about to collapse.

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