Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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2108. To ask the Minister for Health the estimated additional cost of pay restoration for all section 39 organisations that have reached an agreement with the State through the Workplace Relations Commission; the amount of pay that has been restored to date; the amount of pay that is still outstanding; the timeframe for all payments to be completed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36547/21]

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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2109. To ask the Minister for Health if all section 39 organisations have reached an agreement with the State through the Workplace Relations Commission with regard to pay restoration; if not, the number that have not; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36548/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 2108 and 2109 together.

Section 39 agencies are agencies under Section 39 of the Health Act 2004 where the HSE provides a grant to allow the agency to provide services similar or ancillary to the HSE. They were not and are not party to the Public Service Agreements and are therefore not covered by the pay restoration provided for in these Agreements.

In October 2018, an agreement was reached by the parties at the Workplace Relations Commission in relation to a process of pay restoration for staff employed in a pilot group of 50 section 39 organisations who are funded by way of a Service Level Agreement (SLA). A further WRC engagement followed in December 2020 in relation to a final phase of 250 SLA funded organisations who were identified as part of the earlier agreement.

Pay restoration was applicable to Section 39 organisations who met certain criteria, rather than types of individual workers that are employed in them. The list of section 39 organisations that was compiled, included only agencies that had service arrangements in place back in 2013 and that were still under service arrangements in 2019. Only organisations who received in excess of an agreed, specified amount from the HSE by way of the Service Level Agreement process were included.

It must be acknowledged that Section 39 organisations are privately owned and run and that their terms and conditions of employment, once in line with employment legislation, are strictly between the employer and the employee. Consequently, it would not be appropriate for the Department of Health to provide a list of which section 39 agencies applied for pay restoration, received funding under the pay restoration agreement or the amount that they have received.

Pay restoration is absolutely limited and only applicable to those included in the initial WRC agreement. I can also confirm that there is no scope to revisit the eligibility criteria for the process and that the process has reached a final resolution.