Written answers

Tuesday, 16 May 2023

Department of Health

Health Services Staff

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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648. To ask the Minister for Health if he will provide an update on plans to deliver a living wage for home support workers and healthcare assistants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22647/23]

Photo of Stephen DonnellyStephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In order to examine the significant workforce challenges in the home-support and nursing home sectors in Ireland, Minister Butler established the cross-departmental Strategic Workforce Advisory Group in March 2022. Working closely with key stakeholders, the Advisory Group made 16 recommendations to address the challenges in frontline carer roles in the home support and long-term residential care sectors.

Their report was published in October 2022 with 16 recommendations across the areas of recruitment, pay and conditions of employment, barriers to employment, training and professional development, sectoral reform, and monitoring and implementation.

Minister Butler has endorsed the Advisory Group’s recommendations. Implementation of the recommendations will be overseen by a cross departmental Implementation Group, chaired by the Department of Health. The Department is engaging with recommendation owners to define an implementation plan.

A detailed implementation plan will be published containing steps involved in delivering the recommendations in the coming months. It is envisaged that the implementation group will meet quarterly and publish progress reports thereafter.

Implementation has commenced. The first recommendation no. 9 was implemented in December 2022 with the announcement of the authorisation of 1,000 employment permits for non-EU/EEA home support workers. This promises to significantly reduce the current shortage of care workers in Ireland.

Recommendation 6 provides that all private-sector and voluntary providers should be invited to give a commitment to pay home-support workers and healthcare assistants, at a minimum, the National Living Wage (€12.90 per hour at the time of writing). Progression of this recommendation is linked to the outcome of the Tender 2023 process.

The 2018 Tender Framework for the provision of home support services was initially valid for the period 01 September 2018 to 31 December 2020. This was further extended by the HSE at the end of 2022, initially to the end of April 2023. The HSE has proposed a further extension of the contract arrangements to Friday 30th of June, to allow time to finalise tender arrangements.

The process of developing the new tender is at an advanced stage. Officials in the Department of Health are engaging at a senior level with the HSE and the HSE has ongoing engagements with home care providers to progress the new tender. No final decisions on the tender content have been reached. As a strict communication protocol applies in all phases of the procurement process it is not possible to discuss further while the process is ongoing.

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