Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator O'Brien for raising this issue which I went through with his colleague, Deputy Billy Kelleher, recently. The Senator's question on home helps is specific and he has clearly stuck to his question but the issue has a wider context. I thank him for raising the issue in the House. He will of course be aware that the issue of paying gratuities to a particular group of home help workers was considered by the parties at the recent public sector talks that were facilitated by the Labour Relations Commission. The Minister and I believe it is important that we do all we can to ensure that those members of our elderly population who wish to stay in their own homes and communities are supported and facilitated to do so. Also, I want to ensure that we support in every way we can the return of those who have required acute hospital care back into their homes when they are fit for discharge.

In 2015, the HSE will spend €330 million on home care packages and home help services, including €185 million to provide 10.3 million home help hours. As the Senator rightly pointed out, these people form an invaluable group in terms of services delivered within the wider community. Home help services are provided mainly by HSE directly employed staff. A home help contract introduced for HSE employees in 2014 followed on from a lengthy consultative process under the auspices of both the LRC and the Labour Court. The annualised contract which was accepted is fundamental to both parties as it matches the actual workforce to the changing needs of the service as well as giving certainty to employees by way of guaranteed weekly minimum paid hours. However, in the greater Dublin area, as well as in Wicklow and Clare, home help services are provided by voluntary providers on behalf of the HSE. It is this group of home help workers that I shall focus on now and I know the Senator has a particular interest in this group. Voluntary providers are funded under section 39 of the Health Act 2004. The HSE has in place service level agreements with these providers that sets out the level of home help service to be provided in respect of the grant to the individual organisations and requirements in terms of standards of care. As the home helps employed by these section 39 organisations are not HSE employees, the HSE has no role in determining the salaries or other terms and conditions applying to these staff, including pension arrangements. Accordingly, such arrangements offered by individual providers will vary.

Access by home helps, who work in voluntary organisations, to a pension has been the subject of a number of Labour Court recommendations involving SIPTU, IMPACT and the HSE. Implementation of a Labour Court recommendation on the payment of a gratuity to the home helps employed by the section 39 organisations has been hindered in recent years by the budgetary situation, a situation that I know the Senator will understand. The matter is further complicated by the fact that the HSE is not the employer and, therefore, has no role to play.

As I noted in my opening comments, this issue was discussed during the recent Lansdowne Road talks in the context of which a side agreement was made. The parties reached agreement on a process for giving a more formal consideration to the matter and to establish, in the short-term, a working group to examine a number of issues, including gratuity payments for home helps. This process will now be progressed following the recent ratification of the Lansdowne Road agreement. Initial contacts have taken place between the HSE and the relevant staff associations. It is expected that the first meeting will take place during this month of October. The precise time for the duration of the work involved will be agreed at that stage which is likely to be approximately three months.

I want to acknowledge the valuable contribution that home help workers make in our communities and the fundamental role they play in ensuring that our growing elderly population are facilitated as much as possible to live as independently as they can. I hope that this is the beginning of the process. I also hope that the Senator's long and considered correspondence with the Department of Health, more than anyone else, will in fact contribute to an outcomes that we can all live with.