Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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64. To ask the Minister for Health the current engagement of his Department with the upcoming round of public pay negotiations; if he will report on the work his officials are undertaking with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform with regard to examining the disparities in pay for section 38 and section 39 HSE funded organisations in view of the fact that employees undertake the same work; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26060/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I can confirm that officials from my Department and the HSE participated in the recent pay talks to discuss a successor agreement to the Lansdowne Road Agreement which were held at the Workplace Relations Commission. A draft Public Service Agreement was reached on 8 June 2017 and is currently being considered by the unions in the context of the public servants they represent.

Any disparities that exist between section 38 and section 39 organisations are due to the fact that they are very different entities. Organisations that are funded under Section 38 of the Health Act 2004 provide a defined level of health and personal social services on behalf of the HSE. These section 38 agencies include both acute and non-acute organisations. The employees of bodies that are funded under Section 38 are classified as public servants. They are subject to the standard salary scales for the health sector and have access, in the main, to public service pension schemes. These employees are also included in public service employment numbers.

On the other hand, Section 39 agencies are agencies where the HSE provides a grant to allow the agency to provide services similar or ancillary to the HSE. The governance context in which the HSE engages with section 39 agencies is distinctly different from that which applies in the case of section 38 agencies. For example, the employees of section 39 agencies are not public servants, are not members of public sector pension schemes and, unlike their section 38 counterparts, are not directly bound by the Department of Health consolidated pay scales.

As the HSE and the Department of Health have no role in the pay rates or terms and conditions of the staff employed by these section 39 agencies, it is a matter for Section 39 organisations to negotiate salaries with their staff as part of their employment relationship and within the overall funding available for the delivery of agreed services.