Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This dispute is scheduled to take place tomorrow, when 10,000 workers who are absolutely essential to the functioning of our health services will take to the picket line. These are low-paid workers such as chefs and healthcare assistants. This strike will happen because the Government has broken its word.

The Taoiseach knows, as the workers know, that back in 2015 there was an agreement to reintroduce job evaluations. The reason was that there was a recognition that low-paid workers had taken on additional tasks and responsibilities and that due to austerity, the financial collapse and the policies of many assembled here, the workers were not receiving the correct levels of pay. The Taoiseach agreed to this job evaluation scheme in 2015 but of course he welshed on that and dragged his heels. Eventually, in 2017 a job evaluation scheme was initiated to avoid strike action at that time. When the exercise was carried out, it found in phases 1 and 2 that more than 6,000 workers were being underpaid. Low-paid workers are being substantially underpaid, by between €1,500 and €3,000 per year, which is a lot of money when one is on a low wage. The curious part of it is that the HSE accepted the validity and necessity of the evaluation process and its outcome. It then asked for this shortfall to be funded. As the Taoiseach knows, the cost would amount to some €16.2 million, which is a drop in the ocean and minuscule when compared with the waste and overspend his Administration has stood over.

The Taoiseach says he does not want the strike to happen. It strikes me that he does want it to happen because the basis of the strike action is his failure to honour and keep his word. There is no need for a Labour Court intervention and there is no need for the Workplace Relations Commission. What is required is a political decision and a political acknowledgement that these workers hold our health system together and a recognition that they are not being paid what they are due. It requires the Taoiseach, as Head of Government, to ensure that the moneys required to give these workers what they are entitled to is released. Sin é; that is it. That is the beginning, the middle and the end of it. If the Taoiseach really does not want this strike to happen, he should make sure that the word of the Government is kept and the request by the HSE for these moneys is met.

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