Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I salute the medical scientists in the Public Gallery today and all of those who were on the picket line yesterday and last week. I thank People Before Profit for tabling this important Private Members’ motion in the Dáil.

The intervention by the Labour Court is to be welcomed, given the key role that medical scientists play in the delivery of our healthcare, but the HSE and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform have to move to take responsibility for the situation and resolve it. The Labour Court cannot be used to continue stalling. The HSE and the Department must engage in meaningful negotiations. After all, this claim dates back more than 20 years to 2001. At the time, the claim by the MLSA was conceded by the expert group report, by what is now the HSE, by the Department of Health and by the then Minister for Health and Children, the current Taoiseach. However, it was unintentionally overturned by a benchmarking process in 2002.

I was disappointed with the Minister’s reply when I raised the issue last week. Like the HSE and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, he is washing his hands of this legitimate claim from these workers. He is using the public service agreement, Building Momentum, which restricts any pay increase to 1%. This is not a pay claim, though. It is an historical pay parity claim. The Minister has also used Building Momentum to criticise these workers for going on strike, saying that their action last week was contrary to the MLSA’s commitment under that agreement. The fact that 21 years of frustration has only now resulted in very limited strike action shows the commitment of medical scientists to doing their jobs and providing a crucial service for people’s health. It is the height of hypocrisy to laud health service staff as heroes on the one hand and, on the other, to treat these essential workers and others in this manner.

I will briefly refer to an email that I received from a medical scientist of 17 years, all of which she has spent working in the public service. Her working week consists of 37 routine hours and, currently, at least another 24 hours of rostered night and weekend duty. These extra hours are not voluntary, but a mandatory roster consisting of 15 medical scientists providing the emergency out-of-hours service. This mandatory overtime affects all of her life, including her health, home life and social activities. She writes that, although she is not as young as she used to be, she is working more hours than she ever did. This is because there are staff shortages in her lab, with no immediate prospect of those posts being filled. Every year, training in medical scientist graduates has been a core part of her role and something she used to enjoy, but it has become soul-destroying in recent years because she sees how the new graduates, after four to five years in college, view the crazy working arrangements and hours and vow to never work in the public system. All of this is in addition to the fact that she and her colleagues worked and trained through Covid and dealt with the HSE cyberattack and all of the additional work that they took on without resources.

This is intolerable. These conditions are the key factor in the recruitment and retention crisis across the health service, particularly as regards medical scientists. This situation cannot continue. Where there is a will, there is a way, and there is always a will and always a way. The Department has to be creative. Building Momentum cannot resolve this issue. As the Minister pointed out, it can only provide a 1% increase, so he must think outside the box. How will he deliver the other 7% that is needed as well as career progression within the grade?

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