Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. The National Advocacy Service provides a free and independent representative advocacy service to adults with disabilities across Ireland. The service has a particular remit to work with people with disabilities who are in vulnerable situations such as people who are isolated from their community of choice or mainstream society or who may communicate differently and who have limited formal or natural supports.We are talking about some of the most vulnerable people in our society and a service that is absolutely crucial to those people. These advocates stand up for people who in many cases have nobody else to stand up for them. The National Advocacy Service provides assistance to more than 1500 disabled people each year, with in-person advocacy interventions in areas including housing, access to justice, healthcare, safeguarding and supporting in decision-making. The service is currently in crisis and the workers are now on strike for the second time. The reason they are on strike is that their employer, the Citizens Information Board, along with the Department of Social Protection, is refusing to implement a Labour Court recommendation to make modest improvements to their pay scales. The existing scale has just four points and the recommendation from the Labour Court is to bring it in line with other similar organisations, by expanding it to a ten-point scale with additional long-service increments. The top salary is just €46,000, which, for the challenging and highly complex roles involved, is frankly an insult to the workers concerned.

Here we have a fully funded public body under the remit of the Department of Social Protection refusing to implement a Labour Court recommendation to bring a small element of pay decency to these crucial roles. There really is no hiding place for the Government. The Department of Social Protection, which has attended talks at the Workplace Relations Commission with former Labour Court chairperson Kevin Duffy, has point blank refused to date to implement this recommendation. This is not just a slap in the face for these vital workers but a slap in the face for the industrial relations machinery of the State and the Labour Court.

The Department of Social Protection ultimately funds the National Advocacy Service and many other community organisations. Its refusal to fund the implementation of the Labour Court recommendation undermines all workers rights to a fair implementation of the independent decisions of the Labour Court. The approach of the Government towards these community workers, in refusing to assist with the implementation of a Labour Court recommendations, is in stark to the Minister’s calls for the Labour Court to be respected in the Aer Lingus pilots' dispute. It is time this Government stood up for the community sector and gave these workers the respect they deserve. The position adopted by the Government and Department, in refusing to adequately fund community organisations, indicates contempt for all community workers in funded organisations. It is time to respect the community sector, its workers and service users and the families who rely on these vital services.

These workers are on strike. Some are outside the gates of Leinster House as we speak. I was standing with them before I came in here. For every day that they are on strike, the most vulnerable people in the State have nobody to advocate for them. The reason they have gone on strike is that the Government has failed to fund the service properly and, worse still, has refused to implement a Labour Court recommendation. The cost of implementing it is absolutely minuscule. I cannot begin to express the anger that those workers feel. They have been represented brilliantly by their union SIPTU, but they have been let down by the Government and, in particular, the Department of Social Protection. I am hoping the Minister of State will give me a positive response. I urge her, after this discussion, to go and meet the workers, who will be outside until 2 p.m., and listen first-hand to just how hard their lives are, how hard the struggle they have to endure is and the failure of the Government to address this issue.