Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

recognises:

— that until 2008 people employed in the community, voluntary and care sector, such as Section 39 workers, received pay increases under national wage agreements, but have not received pay increases since, and have no formal mechanism for collective pay bargaining;

— the immeasurable contribution of independent non-State agencies in the community and voluntary sector, which provide a range of vital health and personal social services that the State has historically outsourced;

— that these vital public services include Health Service Executive (HSE)-funded Section 39 organisations, Tusla-funded Section 56 organisations, Section 10 homeless services funded indirectly through the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and a broad range of community services like those managed by supervisors of the Community Employment Scheme, Tús and the Rural Social Scheme, where salaries are indirectly funded by the State; and

— that without the continued active participation of these bodies there would be massive deficits in public services across a range of activities, including meeting the healthcare needs of both old and young, and of people with disabilities, provision of child and family services, accommodation and homeless assistance, dealing with substance abuse and suicide prevention, domestic violence supports and working for social inclusion, education and community development across the State;

notes that:

— public sector workers received a pay rise of 3 per cent under Building Momentum - A New Public Service Agreement 2021-2022, with a further 6.5 per cent increase under an extension to that agreement, but no pay rise or improvement in conditions was provided to the community and voluntary sector;

— pay claims have been submitted as part of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions-led "Valuing Care, Valuing Community" campaign supported by the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union, Fórsa and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation;

— Fórsa commissioned the report entitled "A New Systemic Funding Model: The voluntary and community sector in the 2020s", written by researcher Brian Harvey, on delivery of health services by Section 39 organisations; and the report found very high annual staff exit rates of up to a third annually, with further reports since of workers leaving to take up direct employment in the public service such as the HSE, due to the pay gap and gulf in terms and conditions;

— during the economic crisis Section 39 bodies were instructed by the HSE to cut the pay of staff in line with pay reductions for public servants, but that these staff were not automatically included in pay restoration agreements and, while there were some pay restoration measures, these were not commensurate with those in the public service; and

— these bodies are funded through a mix of Service Level Agreements and fundraising, but there is no automatic rise in public funding in line with public service pay agreements, and that recent increases to some bodies have been to support service delivery, not improved terms and conditions or pay restoration and parity for staff;

acknowledges:

— that, while these organisations continue to sustain the communities they serve, there is a growing crisis within the sector because its workers, who have endured over a decade without a pay rise, are undervalued and disrespected by the State;

— that the anomalous position of these workers leaves them excluded from public sector negotiations on pay and conditions, and from any other collective bargaining arrangement, and that their vulnerable status has resulted in them being undervalued and underpaid in insecure employment with poor career paths, resulting in a high turnover of staff which adversely impacts on the level of care that can be provided to those in need; and

— the need to establish a renewed relationship between not-for-profit organisations and the State, based on a shared long-term vision and plan that would allow for an integrated approach to service provision supported by adequate funding; and

calls on the Government to:

— mandate the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to reverse the policy that has resulted in the exclusion of thousands of affected workers from the established norms of the public sector employment framework on the basis of continuing claims that no direct employment relationship exists between those workers and any public body;

— fund pay rises for workers in the community and voluntary sector, in line with recent public sector pay agreements;

— implement these pay rises through the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform by establishing a standing forum and mechanism for collective bargaining on pay and conditions with recognised trade unions in the sector;

— guarantee that Ministers in the relevant line Departments commit to funding increases for organisations they support in order to provide for salary increases;

— ensure that future Service Level Agreements provide for automatic funding increases for salaries in line with public service pay increases and policy; and

— commit to a multiannual funding framework for the sector to provide certainty for providers, their staff, and those who rely on their essential services.

In opening the debate I welcome the workers who have come to Leinster House to view it. We have workers from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation in the Gallery and workers from Fórsa and SIPTU are on their way. They have been the driving force in the valuing care, valuing community campaign in recent years. They have worked hard to build momentum and energy for what they require and what they so desperately need, which is pay justice, pay restoration and pay increases.

The ask of this motion is simple but if delivered it would have a radical impact on the lives of the workers, who perform some of the most vital and important jobs in the State. I am proud to introduce the motion in the name of the Labour Party on behalf of community and voluntary workers throughout Ireland who have been working so hard on this campaign. Before I go into detail on the motion I want to assuage some of the concerns that have been expressed by the Government in recent days. The motion is not a Trojan horse to make community workers public sector workers. Community and voluntary workers do not want this. They want to remain community and voluntary workers. They just want respect. The motion is also not a Trojan horse to make community organisations public sector organisations. The organisations do not want this. They are community organisations. This is their DNA and fabric and they want to remain so. They just want respect and to be valued.

The motion is about finding a mechanism to ensure these workers can bargain for pay. This is a fundamental requirement for any worker in this country and something on which we are falling far behind. The motion boils down to something as dull and technical as a mechanism for pay bargaining. It is something that has been done in other areas. We have seen it in childcare. There are models that can be used for section 39, section 56 and section 10 workers and the community and voluntary sector. We are not trying to reinvent the wheel. We are trying to bring the Government up to where it needs to be, which is to recognise these workers and their serious concerns and recognise that they need a pay increase having had their pay cut in 2008 with no mechanism to restore it since.

Yesterday the Taoiseach criticised the motion saying it was too broad. This was on Leaders' Questions in response to Deputy Bacik. The ask of the motion is not broad; it is simple. The scope of the motion is broad in terms of the workers it seeks to value and assist because this is the extent to which the workers in these organisations are active in our society. They represent a broad spectrum of work. This includes disability services, addiction services, homelessness services and nursing. The list goes on and on. There are also community employment supervisors. This is where the motion is broad but the Government should not fear it. There is nothing to fear from bringing as many workers as possible into fair pay and proper pay mechanisms. The Government would be rewarded if it did so.

The Government needs to join up the dots on why this is important. This not just about pay. When the Government answers questions on why there is a delay in home care packages being given it has to join up the dots and ask why we do not have enough home care workers. When members of Government answer questions on why day care services are being paused or unable to get off the ground they have to ask why there are no day service workers or why the workers are leaving the service. When Government Deputies are answering questions at clinics from service users who say they must continually build new relationships with new care workers they have to ask why. It fundamentally comes down to the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector, which is underpinned by low pay and the workers having no mechanism to negotiate their way out of it. This is the reality.

We know the HSE is poaching staff from this sector. We know staff are exiting the sector to go to other jobs for better pay. We know they are exiting this country to take up care roles in the NHS or further afield. The Government knows this. In May I attended national demonstrations and spoke to supervisors and workers. I was on the picket line in July with the Irish Wheelchair Association. Several weeks ago I went to Charleville to meet St. Joseph's Foundation with Deputy Sherlock. While the workers are diverse in the jobs they do they are united in their experience of being undervalued, on the outside and not being listened to. They are united in the fact, as has been said, that they provide work and care for those on the margins and the most vulnerable in society. This is what unites all of these workers. It behoves the Government to pay them the respect they deserve.

If we look at the past week as a microcosm of this debate and campaign, we saw that last Thursday Deputy Bacik asked a question of the Tánaiste on pay increases. The Tánaiste said there is a €100 million block grant that will be paid by the HSE which will cover the pay and that it will be enough to do so. There was a glimmer of hope among the workers. We were contacted and asked whether this was good news. We interrogated it a little further and yesterday Deputy Bacik followed up with a question to the Taoiseach. He said the €100 million was a cost-of-living measure. This is not what the Tánaiste said last week.

Last night in the debate on disability matters the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, said that as part of budget 2023 "an inflation support fund of €100 million will be made available to support community-based voluntary organisations, including those providing disability services, which are an essential pillar in the provision of health services". She said the fund "is being made available in recognition of the challenges faced by the sector in delivering and maintaining key health and social care services against a backdrop of increased inflationary pressures affecting energy, heating and related costs." This is the truth of what the money is for. There is no doubt the money is needed but it is not for what the Tánaiste led us, the workers and the trade unions to believe last week, which is that the fund would be part of a mechanism for pay increases and pay restoration. This is an example of the disrespect these workers have been facing for many years, which this campaign is about.

The workers' representatives, their trade unions, cannot even get responses to letters. If they do, the response is to the effect that it is not the respondent's responsibility but that of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform or the Minister for Social Protection or the Minister for Health and round and round they go, with no answers. They move from Minister to Minister. That has to end. We have had straws in the wind and whispers in these corridors that there is a process coming down the line; we have had no detail. We have tabled this motion to ask for that.

Again, we are not seeking to reinvent the wheel. We just want these workers to have what workers in other sectors have and what these workers deserve. That is why the Labour Party now calls on the Government to commit to a formal process to recognise and to engage with workers in this sector and their trade unions in order to ensure that public sector pay rises are automatically passed on in future to recognise this in service level agreements and to commit to multi-annual funding to provide certainty for providers, staff and service users. Anyone who talks to the staff, that is, to the workers, will know that this is what it is about for them. It is about ensuring they can continue to provide the service. For the vast majority of the workers, this is vocational. They want to do this and to be in this service. They are not in it to make millions of euro. They are in it to provide care, to be respected and to have the energy and ability to provide that care and service to the service users. We have had three days of action in the past few months. We have spoken to service users and have not had one complaint from a service user or a family member of a service user about a delay or a stop to a service. The service users fully support this campaign because they know that their caregivers, the workers with whom they interact, are burnt out. They know they are leaving. They know that has an impact on their care. Where would we be without organisations such as the Irish Wheelchair Association, Prosper Fingal and Enable Ireland? The Minister would have a proper collapse in the health service on his hands.

This sector is the bedrock of our health service. When we have patients leaving hospitals and moving to home care packages, they leave the care of HSE-funded employees, who get paid, get their increments and get their pandemic recognition payments. Workers in this sector do not have that. They provide home care packages. There are delays. They work long and hard hours with very little pay. The organisations are struggling to recruit and to retain their staff. That is the essence of this.

The Minister is not opposing the motion, so there will be no set piece vote tonight. We are not interested in set pieces. We want to see action. I hope that in his response the Minister will have something real and tangible to give to us, to the workers and to the representatives in the Gallery and all across the country. I hope this is not another cynical attempt by the Government just to let something pass through for it to go back into the political abyss and the political ether of these corridors and Government Buildings. I plead with the Minister to give these workers something. We hope there is something in the paper in front of the Minister that will be tangible and will deliver. We do not hold out much hope but we will continue to work on behalf of these workers and all the service users all over the country who rely, day in, day out, on these vital front-line services.

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