Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise with the Tánaiste a long-standing issue that stretches back almost 15 years, namely, the pay dispute involving thousands of section 39, section 10 and section 56 workers who have not had a meaningful pay increase during those 15 years. As I am sure the Tánaiste will agree, merely naming just the section 39, section 56 and section 10 workers does a great disservice to these workers and, indeed, to the people who depend on the services. These workers are on the front line. They provide essential services every day of the week in areas across health, disability, family support, children, care of older persons, homelessness and addiction.

The workers and their trade unions, namely, SIPTU, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, and Fórsa, have been campaigning to resolve these pay issues and secure pay parity for years now. They are in a situation where they are being paid the same rate in 2023 as they had been in 2008. The Tánaiste and I know very well that nothing costs the same today as it did in 2008. These vital agencies are experiencing a recruitment and retention crisis. I have seen this for myself, and I am sure the Tánaiste is aware of it.

I recently visited St. Aidan’s Day Care Centre, Gorey. The service there provides overnight, respite, residential and day services for people with intellectual disabilities. The service is cherished by the local community, the service users, their families and the workers who are there but it is losing staff on a daily basis. The centre is losing staff to retail and areas to which the staff do not necessarily want to go to work. These people are trained healthcare professionals. They are losing staff on a daily basis, and they do not know how they will fill the slots on the roster.

As a result of the failure to resolve this dispute, workers in the community and voluntary sector are to commence indefinite strike action from 17 October. This will impact users of services such as Cheshire Ireland, Ability West, CoAction West Cork, Cobh Community Hospital, Daughters of Charity Child and Family Service, Depaul Ireland, Enable Ireland, the Irish Wheelchair Association and many more. I ask the Tánaiste to think of the people who rely on these services. These are children with disabilities and older people. I ask him to think of their families and the impact that losing these vital services will have on the quality of their lives.

I am conscious of the effect this is having on children's disability network teams, CDNTs, in particular. We have discussed many times in this House the impact on children who are unable to get assessments, who are unable to access services and who are unable to access treatments. Families and service users need to be central to any discussions around this strike. If this strike action is not averted by the Government, then the State and the HSE will have to step in to provide these services directly. If the industrial action is not averted and the HSE cannot provide these services, then families will have to take annual leave. They might have to pay for private services if they have the money, and many of them do not. They may have to let their loved ones go without. All of this will have an impact on vulnerable service users, such as children with disabilities and older people. It will also have a huge impact on their families and their loved ones. People wait for years for assessments or for an appointment with a vital therapy service. These are going to be cancelled from 17 October and the families and service users are starting to get very worried about whether there will be a replacement service, as well as about what - if any - planning is being done for a catch-up if they are forced to miss out.

If the Government does not resolve this dispute, then the immediate and ripple impact of the strike action will not leave a single person unaffected. I ask the Tánaiste to please give a commitment that the Government will engage with the workers and their trade unions in a meaningful way and in good faith in order that positive outcomes can be achieved through constructive negotiation and the averting of this industrial action. If the industrial action does go ahead, will the Tánaiste give a commitment that the HSE will step in and provide these vital services?

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