Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Under section 39 of the Health Act 2004, the Health Service Executive (HSE) provides financial assistance to organisations by means of a grant for the provision of services similar or supplementary to a service that the HSE may provide.

I acknowledge the hugely important role section 39 organisations and their workers play in our health and social care services. They are essential in providing services to many families and vulnerable people in society. In 2022, the HSE provided in excess of €675m to Section 39 providers for Specialist Disability Services.

These organisations are privately owned and run. Their terms and conditions of employment, once in line with employment legislation, are strictly between private sector employers and their employees. While they are private organisations, we recognise their sustainability, and ability to pay staff, is highly dependent on state funding.

I am aware that organisations funded under Section 39 are experiencing challenges in the recruitment and retention of staff. These challenges are mirrored in many of the caring and public facing professions across the State. The sustainability of the sector who deliver valuable services through their staff on our behalf is a concern for both the Department and the HSE. Similar considerations arise in respect of organisations funded by Tusla under Section 56 of Child and Family Agency Act 2013 and in other sectors across Government.

Notwithstanding that the employees of Section 39 organisation are private sector employees with no employment relationship with the HSE, Tusla or my Department, a process of engagement to examine the pay of workers in community and voluntary organisations was committed to by the Government in October last year and we remain fully committed to the process.

On 17 April, officials from my Department, the HSE, Tusla and the Department of Health met with union representatives under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC). This engagement sought to understand and explore the scope of the unions claim for pay rises for Community and Voluntary sector workers. A follow up engagement took place at the WRC on 15 May. None of the organisations attending the exploratory talks is the employer of the staff in question. As this is an ongoing facilitated process I am limited in what I can say, however I want to see matters effectively and quickly resolved in the interests of services users and providers.

It is important to note that this is a broader cross-sectoral issue, so individual components cannot be dealt with in isolation.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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524. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if she intends to reinstate the mobility allowance. [31192/23]

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The Government decided to close the Mobility Allowance and the Motorised Transport Grant administrative Schemes in 2013, on foot of the Ombudsman reports in 2011 and 2012 regarding the legal status of both Schemes in the context of the Equal Status Acts. Both schemes remain closed.

Under the National Disability Inclusion Strategy 2017-2022, the Action 104 Transport Working Group was established in 2020 to make progress on an important cross-Government action to review transport and mobility supports for people with disabilities and to advance proposals for the enhancement of these supports going forward.As Minister of State with responsibility for Disability, I chaired meetings of the Transport Working Group from January 2022 up to its conclusion in December 2022.

The Group's work has now concluded and the final report was published in February 2023. The Report is available on the website of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and sets out the contributions made by members for the enhancement of transport and mobility supports for people with disabilities.