Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I appreciate the response and her understanding of the issue. I also appreciate that she has given an undertaking to communicate to the Minister my frustration and the unfairness and mean-spiritedness I feel have taken place here. I will also, of course, do that myself.

I raise a few points. My understanding is that the waiver applied to 2021 and 2022. According to what the Minister of State said regarding the correspondence it went out in January 2021 concerning the ending of the waiver. That is interesting. I suppose it plays out in terms of the amounts of money involved for these people. As I said, these workers sacrificed themselves. When all of us were locking ourselves up out of harm's way, these people were putting themselves on the front line. The amount of money they are being asked to pay back is extraordinary.

It rubs salt on the wounds to say that it will be okay and that a payment plan will be devised and they can make these repayments over several years. They should not have to pay this money back at all. The most important thing in all this is that the Minister of State said an attempt was made to communicate with the HSE, the Departments and the relevant sections within Departments. I can tell her now with absolute certainty that the healthcare workers who came to me in my constituency, and those who have gone to other TDs in other constituencies as well, were not informed in any way, shape or form about this issue. They had no correspondence. They had no written correspondence or verbal information about this matter until 2024 when they were informed they had to pay back money. This is not good enough. For me, it merits a refund for anyone who has gone about paying this pension reduction money and an ending of this practice. It is absolutely ridiculous. It said that this refers to exceptional circumstances. We still have exceptional circumstances. We have a recruitment embargo. We have wards and units in hospitals that need to be staffed. These people are still doing that and we need them.

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