Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This morning I joined Irish Wheelchair Association workers on the picket line in Clontarf. I was shocked at what they told me. They told me that they worked during the height of the Covid pandemic doing things like collecting swabs from nursing homes and getting Covid because they were working with patients at very close quarters. They are not getting the €1,000 bonus, which is an absolute disgrace. They have not received a pay rise for 14 years. All of this is because the parity they used to have with healthcare assistants has been broken. Even though these are in effect critical parts of our health service - they are public sector workers in reality - they are being treated with utter disrespect. Will the Government give them the pay justice that they are on the picket line for?

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