Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for bringing forward this debate. It was submitted last week. It could have been resolved last Thursday or Friday and this matter might have been recent history but the proposers knew that would not be the case, as we all did. Even if it had been resolved, the proposers know that brining it forward also relates to wider issues in how the State engages with workers. I acknowledge that and I welcome the workers to the Visitors Gallery today.

As others have noted, the dispute is not complex. In the context of industrial relations this case is relatively simple. We have said it has been going on for 20 years but it has been going on for much longer because what happened in 2021 did not just drop out of the sky. It was the result of more than 20 years of campaigning. When I was on the picket yesterday, I spoke to medical scientists who work in Temple Street hospital. They said that when they came out of Kevin Street college, the union was fighting for two things: the move to the Mater hospital and pay parity with the biochemists. That was in the 1970s. They came out of Kevin Street with their bench experience while the biochemists came out with their degrees, and that is where this all began. This goes back many decades. It is not just 20 years. That is obviously a huge amount of time but this goes back almost 50 years.

The Taoiseach said a number of times yesterday, in a rather patronising way, that the union and workers should engage with the full apparatus of labour relations machinery in the State. That is what they have been doing for years. They have been the good girls and boys in class. They have been engaging through their union with the Government for many years and it has got them nowhere until some months ago when they pulled back from industrial action to go back to the WRC.

Industrial action has been suspended and it gives us a moment's pause to speak about what has got us here rather than doing so in the white heat of the picket. Deputy O'Rourke's experience as a medical scientist is important to bring to the Dáil. The Republic has around 32,600 clinical scientists working in 43 publicly funded hospital labs. The services provided by medical scientists are vital to the functioning of the healthcare service, from blood transfusion and transplantation science to medical genetics, molecular diagnostics, haematology, microbiology, virology, cellular pathology, point-of-care testing, immunology, endocrinology and clinical chemistry. As one medical scientist told me on the picket line at Beaumont Hospital last week, they do a lot more than just Covid testing. Covid was a double-edged sword. Yes, it put a lot of the spotlight on the vital role they play, but it is only a small fraction of the vast array of highly complex functions they perform and the unseen front line of our health service. Medical scientists are highly educated and skilled individuals with level 8 degrees and have had specific multidisciplinary medical training to work in a clinical diagnostic laboratory setting. Over 70% of medical scientists have masters degrees or other postgraduate qualifications, including PhDs. They work alongside clinical scientists and biochemists. Biochemists make up 2% of Ireland's clinical scientists and medical scientists 98%. The Association of Clinical Biochemists in Ireland has had far more success in developing and delivering advanced and extended practice roles for the 2% of clinical scientists in Irish laboratories whom it represents than has its counterpart body which represents the remaining 98% of clinical scientists in this country.

Entry level criteria are similar for both professions, although medical scientists must complete one of three Academy of Clinical Sciences and Laboratory Medicine, ASCLM, approved biomedical science degrees where the syllabus is tailored toward the needs of a clinical laboratory to be considered qualified while biochemists can enter their profession with any science degree and little bench experience. Crucial to this dispute is that medical scientists and biochemists have markedly different career pathways, markedly different opportunities for career progression, markedly different reporting structures and markedly different pay scales despite having very similar responsibilities and despite there being no difference in the quality or scope of services delivered by laboratories that employ biochemists and those that do not.

At the top of his or her profession a publicly employed medical scientist can expect to earn only 60% of the wage of a publicly employed biochemist at the top of his or her profession. Biochemists across all grades are better paid and have far more opportunities for progression than their medical scientist counterparts. Over a 40-year career in the public service, a biochemist can expect to out-earn a medical scientist by as much as €1.5 million. The markedly different conditions of employment between medical scientists and biochemists are discriminatory. Medical scientists seek a unified career structure, equal opportunities for career advancement, equal pay for equal levels of responsibility, and equal pay for equal work. Put simply, they seek equality.

In addition to the disparity with their clinical scientist colleagues, medical scientists now earn a lower starting wage than colleagues who report to them. Medical scientists will stress the importance of lab aides to the health service. This is another anomaly that needs to be resolved.

Like many others, I want to highlight the work of medical scientists in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and providing new diagnostic services for a new virus expertly, rapidly and on a nationwide basis during a global pandemic. As I said, it shone an overdue spotlight on the work that is done by medical scientists and its excellence, the word used by Deputy O'Rourke.

Yesterday the Taoiseach spoke grandly of the plans for expanding the number of medical scientists we have and a recruitment plan, but it is not an expansion but rather a refilling of staff. It is replacement of staff because we are struggling to retain medical scientists in publicly funded laboratories throughout the country. There are more vacancies in labs than there are graduates to fill them. That has been the case for some time. It does not take a lot to realise there has to be a breaking point. That has now been reached. The two days of strike action and today's suspended industrial action are testament to that.

The shortage of staff has led to outsourcing much of our testing capacity in the country to the US and the UK. We only have to look at the cervical cancer scandal to see what happens when we outsource such a vital service away from the excellence we know and trust in this country to somewhere where we do not have the same levels of trust. People in this country have been let down to the extent of losing their lives as a result. That is not an exaggeration or hyperbole. It is a fact.

I will conclude by expressing my admiration for the resolve of the medical scientists. Anyone who has spoken to them over the days of their industrial action so far can see there is a continuity, steeliness and determination not only to see this through but to get back to work. However, they will not get back to work unless there is meaningful engagement with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform at the table and they can get what they deserve and is their right, which is true equality.

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