Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. As she knows, I am very enthusiastic about her plans and budget. It is ambitious and the programme for Government is excellent in respect of disability services. I commend the Minister of State on how she has conducted business in the Department and her responsibilities thus far.

I want to begin by acknowledging the enormous difficulties experienced by people with disabilities and their families during the pandemic. Diminished access throughout the pandemic has caused significant hardship and has undermined progress in supports and developments. The requirement for isolating meant that people with disabilities and their families were isolated in order to keep their loved ones safe.

I support a number of organisations. One has particular significance for me, and I mentioned it to the Minister of State last week. I refer to WALK in Drimnagh, which embodies everything that one would want in a disability service in terms of the empowerment of people with disabilities and bringing community to people with disabilities and people with disabilities to the community. It runs two events each year, which sadly are not happening this year, at Halloween and Christmas which are fantastic. Children, including my own child, look forward to them each year. The service is run by people with disabilities. It is fantastic. It is a shared space and community.

WALK is a section 39 organisation. I want to talk to the Minister of State about the difference in staffing remuneration between section 38 and 39 organisations. In order to survive the winter surge in Covid and continue to keep its day services open, WALK is desperately trying to attract, motivate and retain its front-line workers. Its employees are ordinary people who are also trying to combat coronavirus. They work long shifts day in, day out. They sacrifice time with their families and friends and put themselves and their families at risk of contracting the virus.

This is happening within the context of mental and emotional fears that society in general has about Covid. Section 39 organisations are community and voluntary not-for-profit organisations. They have legal service agreements with HSE. Apparently funding across the sector totals €3 billion and more than 3,000 agencies administer these types of contracts. However, there is a distributive injustice in the salary between section 39 and section 38 workers.

In 2008, in response to the crash this particular category of workers were categorised as public servants for the purposes of cutting salaries. However, now they are not but section 38 organisations are and, as a consequence, staff in them have had six increments since 2018 whereas those employed in section 39 organisations have not had any. An organisation like WALK which is trying to retain and attract staff is in competition with section 39 organisations because of pensions and remuneration issues. On top of that, it is less stressful to work in a supermarket for what is probably better remuneration.

The disparity has a consequence in that staff in an organisation like WALK have been invested in and trained and are highly qualified. Yet, they can leave for jobs that are better remunerated with less responsibility and stress. The direct consequence is the ability of services like that to deliver their disability day services. While organisations are getting better at working online, which has been a new aspect of the pandemic that has been very good, for intellectual disabilities nothing beats an in-person service. I know the Minister of State knows that. It is necessary for individuals and their families to be able to cope.

The service has seen a significant increase in mental health issues. Now more than ever it needs staff who are highly experienced. Unfortunately, given the pay disparity it has to employ and engage people who are no doubt equally qualified but are less experienced. Pay disparity affects recruitment, in particular now when we need experienced people working in voluntary and community sectors.I urge the Minister of State to review it and do whatever she can to change it as it would make a really significant difference to these very valuable community organisations.