Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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In the early hours of Tuesday, 17 October 2023, unions reached an agreement on pay parity for section 39, section 56 and section 10 workers who are employed in community services. The agreement came about on foot of a long-running dispute relating to the pay they were receiving and the pay their counterparts directly employed by the State were receiving. A proposal was agreed acknowledging that the workers in those sections deserve pay equality. That was a very significant step for those organisations. A pathway was set out whereby an increase of 3% backdated to 1 April 2023 would be paid before the end of the year, with an increase of 2% from 1 November and an increase of 3% from 1 March 2024. That would come to a pay increase of 8% to those workers within 12 months.

That pay agreement has not been honoured. Of the 3% pay backdated to April, only 80% has been paid to date. I am less concerned about that because that is backdated pay and can be addressed. The increase due on 1 March was not paid on that date. A successor to Building Momentum was agreed with public sector workers since then, and they received a pay increase on 1 January, which means that the pay disparity between the section 39, section 10 and section 56 organisations and their public sector counterparts has widened again. This is causing huge concern within organisations, specifically those providing community services to disabled people.

For example, in my locality, the Irish Wheelchair Association in Cavan has had to reduce its service to an outreach service, consistent with what it offered during Covid times. It is holding Zoom meetings and maybe a limited community contact day once every couple of weeks for service users. It is also carrying out home visits. The staff in the service are excellent. They are doing absolutely everything they can to ensure that the service users get as much contact as possible, but it will not address the needs of those service users. They are so disappointed. The service had been reduced in recent years due to the lack of staff but now it has gone to zero service days. It is not the only organisation faced with this. It may have come to that crunch point at this stage, and it is to be hoped it can be addressed very quickly. It is engaging with the HSE, and we hope there will be meetings to try to address the staffing issue. Other organisations are in similar situations in that they may not quite have got to that point yet but they are very close to it.

There may be a number of reasons for this, but the main one relates to the pay disparity.

I am aware there is a recruitment crisis within the social and healthcare sector as it is, but if there are organisations that can pay, at the basic level, €4 to €5 per hour more than the HSE or section 38 organisations, employees will go to them. You could not blame them. We have a cost-of-living crisis and the employees have high rents or mortgages, so they will take the option.

The IWA in Cavan stated it recruits and trains people to an exemplary standard over six months but that they leave afterwards and go to organisations where they get a higher rate of pay. It also stated the strike and the action that preceded it highlighted the pay disparity. Many workers who had been very happy in their work and wanted to stay felt they had no option but to go elsewhere to secure more pay because of the pressures owing to the cost of living, rental or mortgages.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Comhghairdeas leis an Aire Stáit. Go n-éirí léi ina ról nua.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Go raibh maith agat.

I thank Deputy Tully for raising this issue for discussion in the House. She has been an advocate for people with disabilities and those working with them, which I really appreciate.

The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge the essential role section 39 community and voluntary organisations play. Their staff provide excellent health and social care services and supports to so many throughout the country.

The Government recognises that the ability of organisations to recruit and retain staff is crucial to the delivery of quality services and the overall sustainability of the sector. In recognition of the staffing challenges experienced by providers, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Department of Health and the relevant funding agencies proactively engaged with staff unions through a WRC-facilitated voluntary process.

As the Deputy has said, the agreement reached last October committed to a significant increase in investment in the sector, amounting to a phased 8% increase in funding for the pay for staff in section 39, section 56 and section 10 voluntary organisations. This significant increase was welcomed by all parties. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth provided an additional €14 million to meet the 2023 costs of this agreement, and a further €41 million is being provided in 2024 to support section 39 organisations in meeting the full-year costs of the pay increase. The HSE has put in place the necessary arrangements to make this additional funding available and accessible to qualifying organisations.

As a first step, interim funding was paid in late January and early February to all section 39 organisations in receipt of annual funding above €250,000. All eligible section 39 organisations, regardless of the level of funding, were subsequently issued with a prepopulated template to facilitate claims for the full amount of funding due to their employees. Templates were issued to more than 1,140 organisations to facilitate the uploading of relevant information through a dedicated portal. The administrative arrangements developed by the HSE are designed to make funding available as efficiently as possible to the employer organisations while also providing for appropriate accountability in the expenditure of public moneys.

Given a relatively slow initial response from employers, the HSE wrote to all section 39 funded organisations requesting that they submit their claims and offering support to organisations that have queries about the process. As of last Thursday, 18 April, 363 organisations have submitted details, and requests are being validated and processed as they come in. It is the objective of the HSE to make all due payments without delay so employees of the organisations can access their entitlements as soon as possible. The HSE is working through eligibility issues as they arise and dealing directly with the section 39 organisations on a case-by-case basis. Staff employed in these organisations understandably want to see the increases reflected in their take-home pay. The important message for them is that the HSE is progressing the process with their employers as speedily as possible.

It should also be noted that, following agreement on the recent public sector pay deal, in which the Deputy is particularly interested, Departments, agencies and unions will engage in further talks at the WRC next month. It is in the interest of staff that their employers have a direct and proactive role in this round of further discussions. It remains a key objective of the Government to ensure appropriate funding is available to give stability to service providers for the delivery of quality supports and services to people with disabilities, in addition to paying the workers.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate that and I am delighted to hear there will be further talks and negotiations. If this issue is not dealt with, we will not see an end to this problem. There is a shortage of workers within the sector, so they will go to the agencies and organisations that can pay them more. They will do exactly the same work but be paid better. Several organisations have expressed concern. The IWA expressed concern directly after the unions accepted the deal. While it welcomed the pay increase for workers within its services, it did not feel it would actually address the pay disparity issue. Enable Ireland has expressed concern the money will not be sufficient to cover all the costs relating to the pay increase, such as PRSI and pension costs. These are ongoing issues that need to be addressed.

Many of these organisations get funding only yearly and find it impossible to plan and ensure sufficient funds going forward. The bottom line is the vital services section 39 organisations, in particular, provide impact upon the most vulnerable in society. In this regard, I give the example of a service user of the IWA service in Cavan, a 25-year-old girl called Kaitlin. She was born with Worster-Drought syndrome and she has epilepsy and cerebral palsy, so she cannot talk or walk. She has not been able to do so from birth. She did attend school and knows exactly what is going on. She loved to go to her service, which was available for three days per week at the time. She was promised 26 hours per week but that never came to fruition. She was attending for three days a week for a number of hours but she was told the service would be reduced to three days one week and two the next. The next thing, due to the number of staff off sick, she actually got no hours. Zoom engagements are no good to her because she cannot talk. She appreciates the visits but she is practically a prisoner in her own home because she cannot go to the service she enjoyed so much. Her mother is now practically a prisoner as well because she is her main carer. She cannot get out to do whatever she needs to do because her daughter needs full-time care and assistance at home. What is happening is directly affecting people and their families.

Staff in this sector did not get the pandemic unemployment payment or the recognition payment, despite all the work they did during the Covid pandemic. That was totally unfair.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy again for raising this important issue. I fully appreciate what she has said about the recruitment and retention of staff. Staff in this area are vital because they provide the necessary resources and support that people like Kaitlin and her family need, and that is why the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is committed to sustainable service delivery for the benefit of those who rely on essential services and the workers who are committed to providing a service of the high level in question.

The necessary additional funding has been provided and the HSE is working to make it available to employer organisations as efficiently as possible. Progress has been made in this regard. Once individual organisations have submitted the necessary information to the HSE, it is validated and processed to facilitate the release of the full amount of funding to them. Dedicated supports, including external administrative resources and an online portal, are now in place to support organisations in submitting the necessary information. The HSE is now making payments weekly and the remaining employer organisations are encouraged to submit the required information to the HSE as soon as possible.

The Government has demonstrated its continuing commitment to people with disabilities, with a record €2.9 billion provided in 2024. This includes significant additional funding to help increase service capacity and support providers to deliver more for people with disabilities right across the country. The Minister has acknowledged there is more to do in this area. Following the conclusion of the new public sector pay deal, officials will participate in further discussions with the WRC next month.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Sin deireadh leis na Saincheisteanna Tráthúla, faraor, mar níl an duine eile ann. Táimid roimh ré. Mar sin de, beidh briseadh beag go dtí 9.58 a.m.