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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 17 Jan 2018

Vol. 963 No. 6

Section 39 Agency Staff Reimbursements: Motion [Private Members]

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— there are many Section 39 organisations that receive funding from the Health Service Executive (HSE), though the true figure is unknown even by the HSE;

— these include hospices, disability organisations and other agencies that play a vital role in providing key services for communities across the country;

— Section 39 agencies had pay linkages, for many years, with the public service and received correspondence from the HSE directing them to apply the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) cuts;

— the Labour Court has made recommendations on this long-standing and accepted linkage;

— hospices receive up to 70 per cent of their funding from the State and are now facing service cuts;

— Section 39 employees work as hard and as diligently as those working in the public service and face the same recruitment challenges;

— current pay reductions will have a negative impact on the ability to recruit;

— there was an expectation that pay cuts in Section 39 organisations would replicate the FEMPI cuts made in the public service and, therefore, an expectation that FEMPI pay corrections would also apply;

— the HSE are saying they need extra funding to correct the anomalies;

— the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is expecting the funding to be found without acknowledging that this will have a significant impact on services;

— this current position is fundamentally unfair to Section 39 employers and staff;

— the Government’s response to the valid concerns raised by Section 39 organisations has been dismissive and has added to the feeling of frustration and anxiety felt by the employees of Section 39 organisations; and

— unions are now balloting for industrial action across Section 39 agencies and every effort should be made to defer such action; and

calls on the Government to:

— prevent industrial action taking place in Section 39 agencies, as this will have a negative impact on users of these services;

— address the anomalies and reimburse the FEMPI cuts as was expected;

— recognise that both the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Health need to take responsibility for this issue, primarily in order to prevent services being cut as a result of their ongoing inertia;

— cease passing the buck between departments and prevent cuts being applied to services in order to allow staff to have their FEMPI cuts restored;

— undertake a detailed analysis and commit to a process to reimburse the Section 39 employees who have been paid public service rates and who had the FEMPI cuts applied to them;

— fully implement the Finance Reform programme in the HSE so that Section 39 and Section 38 organisations can be easily identified; and

— establish a mechanism involving the Public Pay Commission and the Workplace Relations Commission, whereby the issue of Section 39 pay disparity can be addressed.

I wish to share time with Deputies Kelleher, Michael Moynihan, Browne and Casey.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

I thank my Fianna Fáil Party colleagues for prioritising the issue of section 39 organisations as our first Private Members' business of 2018. Section 39 organisations are those bodies funded by the HSE that provide a range of vital health and disability services across the country. They include some of our local hospices, national organisations such as Rehab and the Irish Wheelchair Association, and local organisations like the Western Care Association in my constituency of County Mayo. I welcome to the Public Gallery representatives, including unions, of workers in section 39 organisations. Others are watching in because they could not travel to Dublin, unable to take time away from their important jobs.

Could the Minister of State imagine being the person with ministerial responsibility for disability services without section 39 organisations and their workers? His job is already difficult, but could he imagine how much more difficult it would be without the work they do? If he can imagine that, why can the Dáil not give them their proper funding? They provide essential services on a daily basis, including training and support to families in respite and to people with disabilities. They make life-ending illnesses a little easier on the patient and the patient's family. Just as the Tánaiste did this morning, the Government keeps insisting that workers in section 39 organisations are not public servants, but no one can deny that they and these organisations provide an essential public service.

There has long been a link between the pay of those employed directly by the Government via the HSE and so-called section 38 organisations and those who work in the independent section 39 organisations. That link has been confirmed by the Labour Court many times. It was confirmed by the Taoiseach to Deputy Micheál Martin in this Chamber on 8 November. It was reiterated in the manner in which the HSE implemented wage cuts under the Haddington Road agreement in 2014 and previous arrangements.

I have a letter written by a HSE area manager to a section 39 organisation in 2013. Among other points, it reads:

The clear intention is that all agencies including section 39 agencies are to make an appropriate and proportionate contribution to the implementation of payroll and related cost reduction measures, in line with other publicly funded bodies... The intention is that the menu of options and the underlying principles encompassed in the [Haddington Road agreement] will also be applied in respect of section 39 funded agencies and other voluntary providers and that their grants from the HSE will be adjusted accordingly... It is our intention [that is, the HSE's] to include in service agreements with all agencies, including those funded under section 39 the condition that staff should not be remunerated at levels above the statutory pay scales.

This letter was written on 7 October 2013. As such, it was clear in 2013 that the HSE was cutting its workers' salaries and that it considered that section 39 workers had to take the same reductions. They took them, as they also did in 2010.

If it was good enough then to apply reductions, why is the Minister of State now putting his head in the sand and not providing the HSE with the resources necessary to give increases in line with the pay restoration that the House discussed immediately prior to Christmas? It suited the Government at the time to say that reductions had to be applied, but it is now saying that section 39 workers are not public servants and, therefore, not entitled to pay restoration. The Government hammered them with the same cuts.

If someone is a home help worker, a palliative care nurse, a worker in disability services or working overnight in a respite house and employed by a section 38 organisation or the HSE, that person is on the pay restoration path. If someone is doing all those vital jobs under a section 39 organisation, that organisation will not have the resources to give him or her the same increase because the Government or the HSE has not provided the appropriate resources.

This situation cannot continue. These organisations are losing workers to the HSE and section 38 organisations. Vital skills and professionals are being taken from them because of the pay apartheid. Their capacity to provide essential services is being compromised on a daily basis. As some of them are not in a position to commit contractually under part 2 of the services schedule to a specific range of service provision, given that they cannot guarantee the availability of staff over this issue, the HSE is withholding further funding. That is a double whammy for some of these essential organisations.

This cannot continue. Members of the Dáil need to combine. On behalf of section 39 organisations, those who work in them and those who receive their services, it is time to say "Stop". It is time to put a process in place that will allow these workers to share in the pay restoration that their equivalents in HSE organisations are receiving. It is time to stop passing the parcel from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to the Department of Health and the HSE. When that parcel is opened in the end, there is nothing in it for workers who are providing essential services.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this issue, which we have been raising consistently for a number of months. From meeting with section 39 organisations as our spokesperson on health and a constituency Deputy, it is evident that these bodies, which provide wonderful health care and disability services, will be incapable of functioning if this situation continues. We cannot have dedicated people who are providing essential services to those who need them being unappreciated in terms of pay restoration. While we welcome the unwinding of the pay cuts that were implemented in recent years, the idea that we would not address the rights and entitlements of section 39 workers is not acceptable. It is essential that we address them.

I am primarily making this contribution because of the services that these workers deliver. From travelling the country in his role as the Minister of State with responsibility for disability, Deputy Finian McGrath, knows well the importance of section 39 organisations and what they do. Across the country, oversight, fiduciary duties, fundraising and capital investment are provided voluntarily. We are simply asking that the State makes its contribution through pay restoration for the workers providing these essential services. We are not asking for anything beyond that.

It is incumbent on the Minister of State and the Government to at least put a process in place between now and March to address these issues. The Government must determine how many section 39 organisations there are and budget for their cost implications. All this must be done soon. The matter must be referred to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and the Public Service Pay Commission, PSPC, if we are to start unwinding the pay cuts and ensure parity between section 38 workers and section 39 workers. If the Government does not do this, there will be a continual downgrading of essential services in communities across the country. Organisations will not be able to guarantee services because they will not be able to retain or recruit staff.

The Government is getting exceptional value for money. The many audits of section 39 bodies that were conducted during the downturn showed the majority to be exemplary in their financial prudence and efficiencies.

In my constituency there are many such examples. It is evident across the county of Cork and the country and every Deputy is aware of it. We need to ensure the Government acknowledges the importance of the role they play and is upfront on the issue of pay restoration in order that the workers will have their basic rights and entitlements restored, just like workers in section 38 organisations and the rest of the public service. The Government must also ensure those who depend on the services provided will have an opportunity to avail of them from workers who have parity of esteem with those in section 38 organisations and the broader public service. I commend the motion to the House.

I commend Deputy Dara Calleary on tabling the motion and welcome the opportunity to speak about this very fundamental issue. I know that the Minister of State met representatives of St. Joseph's Foundation in Charleville on 12 January 2017 when they outlined to him the issues involved in pay restoration. I will speak specifically about how the issue is affecting St. Joseph's Foundation and the deficit in funding. Everyone must accept that section 39 organisations are doing absolutely massive work. St Joseph's Foundation has been a service provider for 50 years. It has been expanding the services it provides. It is looking at new therapies and better ways to help young people with disabilities. It provides care from the cradle to the grave. Its interaction with the local community and the way in which it supports it through fundraising are second to none. However, organisations such as St. Joseph's Foundation are at a crucial juncture and what happens in 2018 will define them.

We are calling on the Government to ensure flexibility on the block grant section 39 organisations must negotiate every year with the HSE. There is no give or encouragement from the HSE which is constantly looking for cutbacks, value-for-money audits and so forth. There is no doubt that funding for the organisations has been pared back to the bone in the past ten years and what happens in 2018 will tell a lot in how they move forward in recruiting and retaining staff if they do not receive adequate funding from the HSE. The staff and boards of organisations such as St. Joseph's Foundation work so hard to comply with HSE regulations and budgets. We are at a critical point and it will be a crying shame if critical services for clients of all ages are cut back because of staff shortages. We were told back in November that there was reason to be hopeful with regard to pay restoration, but we are now in January and the issue is nowhere near to being resolved. Pay restoration must be top of the agenda. I appeal to the Minister of State to take this on board. This is not just another Private Member's motion; it deals with a very serious issue that is affecting people at all levels and we need action to deal with it.

There are many other issues facing disability services. This morning I raised the issue of insurance costs. There are also issues for service providers in complying with HIQA regulations without the provision of additional funding. One arm of the HSE is stating the service providers must comply with regulation A, B and C, while another is refusing to provide additional funding to enable them to do so. This will cost services for people who badly need them unless the Government agrees to increase the block grants to section 39 organisations. It will not be enough to increase the grant in 2019 or 2020; this is a critical year for the organisations. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in favour of pay restoration for employees of section 39 organisations. I commend Deputy Dara Calleary and the Fianna Fáil Party on tabling the motion.

Section 39 organisations operate on a voluntary basis and provide a wide range of vital services such as hospice care, disability support services and home help services. They do amazing work that, to all intents and purposes, the State should be doing. They provide exceptional value for money and release the State from significant levels of expenditure. In my constituency of Wexford there are numerous section 39 organisations which are doing commendable work for local communities. They include St. Aidan's Day Centre in Gorey, New Ross Community Hospital, the Ardaoíbhínn community initiative in Wexford town and the County Wexford Community Workshop in Enniscorthy. Pay restoration for section 39 organisations should not require a Private Members' Bill. It is wholly inadequate that the Government is continuing to turn a blind eye to the unfairness for employees of section 39 organisations.

I tabled a parliamentary question on this issue in October 2017 and was disappointed with the reply from the Minister for Health. In his reply he pointed to the responsibility of those working in section 39 organisations to negotiate their own salaries. However, he conveniently ignored the fact that the HSE was the body that provided the funding to deliver agreed services which required an appropriate level of staffing to do so. In many ways, the answer reflected the Government's ambivalence, inaction and detachment on the issue. When the last Government cut funding to the organisations, front-line staff suffered significant pay reductions. They suffered significant pay cuts as part of the wider public sector pay reductions imposed by the last Government. However, staff in the organisations have not been given a pathway to pay restoration in line with their colleagues in the public sector. Historically, there was a link between public sector workers and section 39 staff and now that the State's finances are in a healthier position, funding for section 39 organisations should be increased to allow for pay restoration in the same manner as it has occurred for public sector staff. The organisations are losing essential staff to the HSE and section 38 organisations and their vital work is being undermined. It is vital that the Minister seek additional funding from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to increase the annual funding for section 39 organisations, with the express intention of bringing about pay restoration. Leaving it up to the management of the organisations to choose between restoring pay and maintaining services for the most vulnerable in society is an abdication of responsibility by the Minister and the HSE. The staff do work that is on a par with that done by their public sector colleagues and they are entitled to pay parity.

I welcome and support the motion tabled by my Fianna Fáil colleague Deputy Dara Calleary to highlight the issue of pay restoration in section 39 organisations which must happen immediately if we are to have equal pay for equal work in the public service. Wicklow Community Services and the Ardeen Cheshire Home in Shillelagh are excellent examples of organisations that provide much needed support for vulnerable people and families in County Wicklow. These support services are excellent, with dedicated and hard-working staff. The Government has consistently washed its hands of the issue and dismissed this unjustifiable inequality for far too long. This has caused even more stress and frustration for section 39 organisation workers in County Wicklow. Staff feel undervalued and under-appreciated because of the dismissive attitude taken by the Government. This means that section 39 organisations are struggling to retain and recruit staff. Pay disparity is affecting the provision of vital services in County Wicklow, on which many people rely. It is also placing section 39 organisations under huge financial and service pressures and industrial action may occur in March unless there is a resolution. It is important to recognise that if section 39 organisations were to stop providing services, it would cost the State far more to provide them in County Wicklow and elsewhere and, in many cases, they would not be provided at all. It is time for fairness and immediate pay restoration.

I thank Deputies for raising this important matter and providing us with an opportunity to debate it in the Dáil. I welcome our friends and colleagues from section 39 organisations who are in the Visitors Gallery and thank and commend them for their work. I have met many of them in the past two years as Minister of State with responsibility for people with disabilities. I have made no secret of the fact that I have great sympathy for the workers who are affected by this issue. As Minister of State with responsibility for people with disabilities, I understand the importance of the work done by section 39 organisations. They are particularly important in the disability sector, more so than in other parts of the health service.

The Government is not putting its head in the sand on this issue. We are very aware that pay disparity within the public health sector is an increasing problem for section 39 organisations.

That is why the Government is not opposing the original motion tabled by Fianna Fáil. However, we are opposing the amendment. Our objective is to put in place a process to resolve the impasse. The Independent Alliance is very strong on this issue. I am sitting beside my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, who has met the staff and the unions. The Minister of State, Deputy Halligan, has met the unions as well. We have all sat down and listened very carefully. The Minister, Deputy Ross, and the former Minister of State, Deputy Canney, are also very supportive of these efforts.

What about Fine Gael?

We are listening to those who are putting forward their issues. We have been listening in recent months. That is why we have met those I have mentioned. We know this issue needs to be addressed. It is a complex matter that needs careful thought and consideration if a solution is to be reached.

Under section 39 of the Health Act 2004, the HSE funds organisations by means of a grant. The service level agreements that the HSE has in place with voluntary providers set out the level of service that is to be provided through those grants to individual organisations. The value of these grants can range from millions of euro to just a few thousand euro. I will put the scale of what is involved here into context. In 2016, the HSE provided over €874 million in grants to 2,240 organisations under section 39 of the Health Act 2004. The motion we are debating calls for FEMPI cuts to be reimbursed "as was expected". As employees of section 39 organisations are not public servants, however, they are not covered by public service stability agreements. This crucial point is accepted by people on all sides of the argument.

It is important to be aware that there are many organisations involved in the community and voluntary sector. We need to bear in mind the number of people involved. This goes beyond the health sector. In a response to an oral parliamentary question on this matter in December, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform estimated that as non-public servants, the number of staff working in these organisations could exceed 100,000. Approximately 300,000 people are working directly for the State. The State cannot afford to increase the number of public service workers by approximately one third, and it does not want to do so. The staff of these organisations were not subject to the FEMPI legislation which imposed pay reductions. Section 39 organisations are not obliged to pass on any pay reductions to their staff members, and nor are they obliged to provide for any pay restoration that may be negotiated as part of public service agreements.

It is a matter for each section 39 organisation, as the employer, to negotiate salaries with its staff as part of the employment relationship and within the overall funding available for the delivery of agreed services. All agencies had their budgets cut during the financial crisis and were expected to make savings. As a large part of the budget of each organisation is spent on pay, the pay budget was the logical place to start. It is understood that pay cuts were imposed on section 39 employees, but it is not clear how these cuts were applied. We have heard that different organisations did different things. There may have been increment freezes. All recruitment may have been stopped. The number of staff working in the agency may have been reduced over time. They needed to do more with less, and this is what they did. An exercise needs to be carried out to establish the true extent of the pay cuts that may have been applied.

This gives rise to other questions. If the HSE funds just 70% of the budget of an organisation, such as a hospice, and it is found that the staff were subject to pay cuts, how is restoration to be applied? Should the HSE fund restoration to all staff in that organisation, but just to the value of 70% of the cut? Should it fund restoration of the full value of the cut to just 70% of staff? If an organisation receives a grant of just a few thousand euro from the HSE under section 39 of the 2004 Act, should the HSE be responsible for restoring pay cuts which the management of that organisation applied to staff?

It is clear that this complex issue needs to be carefully managed. It has been the subject of discussion between the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, the Minister for Health and their officials for some time. I do not accept the claim in this motion of "passing the buck" or of "ongoing inertia" on the part of the Department or its officials. Along with my Independent Alliance colleagues, I have been raising this issue at Cabinet level. There is heightened urgency with regard to this issue because industrial action in a number of these organisations is threatened for 14 February. The Minister for Health and I are committed to doing all we can to ensure there is no disruption to the delivery of services. The Minister, Deputy Harris, has instructed the HSE to enter into a process of engagement with section 39 agencies in the health sector to establish the factual position regarding pay reductions and pay restoration. It is anticipated that this process will bring about the necessary clarity and transparency and will ultimately lead to an agreed way forward for all the parties involved. My Independent Alliance colleagues and I strongly support this move. We hope it will lead to a resolution and avoid the negative impacts of industrial action.

I have devoted my time as Minister of State with responsibility for people with disabilities to working on developing better services and increasing investment. I have had some success, given that almost €1.8 billion has been allocated for disability services in 2018, which is almost €92 million more than was available in 2017. The Independent Alliance got this over the line when the programme for Government was being drawn up. I am aware of how hard-fought it was to get this additional funding. The Independent Alliance is very strong on this issue. We want to ensure the staff on the ground receive part of this funding. I am happy that a process of engagement will be undertaken with the section 39 bodies. We cannot allow some sort of blanket restoration to all these agencies. It would not be right and it would not be proper. Taxpayers' money needs to be used in the best and most efficient way. We should not have it any other way. We need to proceed with caution. The Independent Alliance will do its best in the interests of the people who use these services. We have a plan and a vision for the disability sector. We want to invest in and reform these services. We want to ensure people with disabilities and ill people who are receiving services from section 39 organisations are at the centre of those services. That is why the Independent Alliance will be pushing very hard on this issue. I strongly commend and thank all those who work in these services. I want to ensure those staff want to work in these services, are well-paid and are looked after in the future.

I would like to share time with Deputies Pearse Doherty, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, David Cullinane and Louise O'Reilly.

Is that agreed? Agreed. I ask the Deputies to exercise self-discipline because I will not be interrupting them.

That is okay. We are very disciplined in this party. We will be supporting this motion. Unlike the Government, we will also support the amendment proposed by Solidarity-People Before Profit. While the Fianna Fáil motion does not address all the issues we would like to see addressed, it addresses the fundamental issue of equal treatment of all section 39 workers in relation to pay restoration.

I had a speech prepared, but then I listened to the Minister of State. It is not very often that I disagree with him, but I have to say that his contribution to this debate was quite insulting to many of the section 39 workers, to be honest. I refer to his statement that these "organisations are not obliged to pass on any pay reductions to their staff members". It is very clear that the pay of such staff has been reduced.

If, the Minister of State asked, the Health Service Executive is only funding 70% of an organisation's budget, should only 70% of the pay that was cut be restored. It would be insulting to do so considering that the affected front-line workers save the State a fortune by doing jobs the Government, through the Department of Health, should be doing in many areas. All the pay cuts were applied to them over the years and the unfairness that applies in respect of pay restoration must be addressed.

The Minister of State indicated he had great sympathy with the workers in question. They do not want sympathy. They want their pay restored as quickly as possible and to the same extent as it is being restored for all other public sector workers. When the pay of these workers was being cut, they were treated as public sector workers. Now that pay is being restored, we are being told they are outside the relevant agreements and the matter is one for the organisations in question to address. This is a load of codswallop. The Government must step up to the plate and recognise the value these workers are delivering to citizens, whether terminally ill patients, people receiving hospice care or disabled persons. They do a tremendous job and while it is fair to praise and commend them, it will not put food on their tables or a roof over their heads. The Minister of State must step up to the plate. He argued he was not passing the buck but that is precisely what he is doing. The Government must take responsibility for this issue.

Cuirim fáilte roimh spiorad an rúin seo atá os ár gcomhair inniu. Ba é seo ceann amháin de na gnéithe is measa a bhí ag baint leis na bearta déine a bhí curtha i bhfeidhm ag an troika Éireannach - Fianna Fáil, Páirtí an Lucht Oibre agus Fine Gael - mar cuireadh oibrí amháin in éadan oibrí eile agus an earnáil phríobháideach in aghaidh na hearnála poiblí.

Tá achan cuma ar an scéal go bhfuil sé doiligh sean-nós a bhriseadh agus an Rialtas fós ag iarraidh deighilt mhór a chruthú idir oibrithe. Is le ceisteanna comhionannais a bhaineann sé seo go príomha. Ní raibh aon dul as ag na hoibrithe nuair a bhí na ciorruithe á ndéanamh ag an Rialtas. Anois, cé go bhfuil fás ag teacht ar an gheilleagar, níl comhionannas san áireamh. Throid oibrithe in eagraíochtaí alt 39 cath crua ionas go n-aithneofaí iad mar sheirbhísigh poiblí agus aithníodh iad mar sheirbhísigh poiblí nuair a bhí na ciorruithe ag teacht. Ach anois tá an stádas sin bainte díobh agus athchóiriú i gceist. Tá na hoibrithe á roinnt ag na daoine i gcumhacht.

Tá cúpla rud faoin rún seo nach bhfuil mé go hiomlán sásta leo. Tá easpa béime á chur ar ceisteanna rialachais agus cuntas. Ba chóir dúinn ár n-aird a dhíríú ar dhínit na n-oibrithe ar an líne thosaigh a thabhairt ar ais. Ní dtig linn luach a chur ar na seirbhísí atá á soláthar acu lá i ndiaidh lae. Tá comhartha ceiste fós ann ó thaobh conas a chaitear an maoiniú atá tugtha do heagraíochtaí alt 39. Thabharfadh rún níos fearr freagair ar an cheist seo.

Thug mé sracfhéachaint do forógra toghchánaíochta Fhianna Fáil le haghaidh an gealltanas seo a haimsiú, ach caithfidh mé a rá nach raibh mé ábalta é a fheiceáil. D’admhaigh siad nach bhfuil a fhios acu cé mhéad a chosnóidh sé seo, ach geallann siad é a chur i bhfeidhm ar scor ar bith. Ba cheart d'achan duine, páirtí agus Teachta Dála sa Teach seo a rá gurb é inniu an lá a gcuirfimis plean i bhfeidhm chun cothrom na Féinne a thabhairt do hoibrithe in eagraíochtaí alt 39, ní hamháin rún gan bhrí le haghaidh na cinnlínte a bhaint amach.

Tugaim mo chuid tacaíochta don rún seo. Tacaíonn mo pháirtí leis an cheart atá ag achan oibrí le pá cothrom is oiriúnach a thuilleamh. Níl dabht ar bith go bhfuil lorg na déine fós le feiceáil, cé go bhfuil fonn orainn é seo a shéanadh.

The subjects of concern at the heart of this Private Members' motion are not the entities referred to as section 39 agencies but the employees of these bodies, the thousands of ordinary, decent workers who provide essential services and supports that focus on the needs of people with intellectual and learning difficulties and an ever growing number of senior citizens. They are people who face all the same demands and responsibilities in life as everyone else. They are not different, and in a recovering economy they must not be left behind. That, however, is what is happening.

They had their pay rates cut at the insistence of the Health Service Executive in line with their public service counterparts under the so-called financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, cuts. The Government, in its various guises, namely, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Health and its agents, the HSE, is refusing to restore the block grants to the section 39 agencies to allow these organisations to restore pay rates to their employees in line with what is happening across the public service. How can the Government insist that the wages of the workers in question be cut in line with those of another set of employees, while refusing to restore the pay of the workers in question in line with pay restoration for their public service counterparts? It cannot sustain this argument because unless the block grants are increased appropriately, the section 39 agencies will not be able to restore their employees' pay. The alternative would be further service reduction to those most in need. That option cannot be contemplated. There must be no service cuts. There can only be restored provision to allow for restored parity of pay.

There are some heavy hitters among the list of section 39 agencies. One could argue that a small number of them may have independent capacity to address the need to restore pay rates. The Minister of State should make no mistake about this, however, because the overwhelming number of section 39 agencies have no such wherewithal and are wholly reliant on State support through the HSE to sustain and develop the much-needed services and supports they provide.

Section 39 agencies have service level agreements with the HSE to provide services at a community level in the areas of intellectual disability, learning disabilities and sensory needs. While section 39 agency employees are not public servants, they had their pay rates cut in line with public servants on the instruction of the HSE. There is no doubt that there is a direct link between the pay rates of these two sets of workers. This link cannot operate only in one direction. If a linkage is made when cuts are implemented, a linkage must also be made when pay restoration takes place.

Since the commencement of pay restoration to public servants through the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road agreements, section 39 agencies have sought the restoration of their block grants to allow for the reversal of the pay cuts imposed on their employees. The HSE has thus far not moved, however. The Taoiseach confirmed the pay linkage in the Dáil before Christmas. It is now past time that he translated his words into actions by having this glaring anomaly and injustice addressed by his Ministers and their Departments. I urge unanimous support for the motion before the House.

After reading the Minister of State's speech, I agree with an Teachta Jonathan O'Brien that it is an insult to workers in section 39 organisations. It is also full of contradictions. It is amazing that the Minister of State made it because he essentially argued that section 39 organisations were not obliged or forced to cut the pay of their staff. He then acknowledged, however, that the Government cut the funding of these organisations and stated that by doing so-----

I did not cut their funding.

I did not interrupt the Minister of State. He should take his medicine by listening for two minutes without interrupting.

I did not make the cuts.

Please allow Deputy Cullinane to continue, without interruption.

Having acknowledged that the State cut the funding of section 39 organisations, he stated that a good place to start in terms of making savings would be to cut salaries given that these organisations spend a large part of their budgets on pay. Bizarrely, he then stated that the pay of employees in section 39 organisations should be restored but he did not know how this should be done. This is a complete abdication of responsibility.

The Minister of State does not have a plan and he and the Government are behaving like headless chickens. They do not know what to do because they do not want to do the right thing. Despite knowing that cutting the funding of section 39 organisations would reduce the funding available for staff pay, the then Government, which included the Labour Party, proceeded to do so. It now does not have a plan to support the affected workers and ensure they get their money back. Rather than making a speech in which he says nothing, the Minister of State should have outlined a plan in order that the workers present in the Public Gallery and those protesting for their just entitlements outside the Dáil, which they should not have to do, get what they deserve. The onus is on the Minister of State and Department. He must return to the Chamber with a plan rather than waffling and using words that insult the affected workers.

I was rather shocked when I heard the Minister of State talking about how marvellous the Independent Alliance is, what saints those involved are and what great work they are doing. It may be a case of the federation versus the alliance. I have before me a letter from the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies. The view of the federation is clear. The letter was written on behalf of section 39 member organisations that have fully complied with FEMPI legislation as well as the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road agreements in the period since 2010. Pay cuts in respect of staff employed by these organisations were implemented to ensure compliance with the then revised Department of Health consolidated salary scales.

In 2010, when Fianna Fáil cut the grant, I represented those workers. We were under no illusions where the instructions were coming from: they were coming from Government.

What did the Minister of State, Deputy McGrath, do when he came to power? He picked it up and ran with it. He instructed those agencies to cut the pay of their workers. Now, he is saying they were only subject to a 70% cut or that they were only 70% funded. They had a 100% pay cut. They deserve 100% pay restoration and nothing less. It is an insult to those people for the Minister of State to come to the House and read out what he read. Day in, day out they work hard. They do not have public service pensions or job security. They are entirely dependent on the block grant, as the Minister of State knows. The block grant funds everything they do. Caring for people, minding them and looking after them is labour-intensive. Labour costs represent the biggest chunk of the money they spend. Of course wages were cut and the Minister of State knows it. They were cut 100% in many instances, exactly in line with the FEMPI legislation.

I thank Fianna Fáil for bringing forward the motion. If those in Fianna Fáil have any humility, they would apologise for what they did to those workers. Fianna Fáil started the cuts and then Fine Gael and the Labour Party picked up and ran with further cuts.

We started to unwind FEMPI.

Staff in section 39 organisations are now far behind those in analogous grades within the public service. They are seeking a pathway back. They need a pathway to pay restoration. It is the least they deserve.

We outsource a good deal of work from the health service to these agencies. It is not fair to disrespect repeatedly these workers. They are delivering a service that the State should be providing. For that reason, Sinn Féin will be supporting the Solidarity-People Before Profit amendment. We believe that it will take time and that it will be onerous. We understand the process will be complicated because we know all the various elements that are involved. We believe the Minister of State should make a statement of recognition to the effect that these workers do the same work as their counterparts in the public service. The principle of equal pay for work of equal value holds. The Government has an opportunity to send a message. The Government either values their work in the same way as it values the work of those in the public services or it does not. The Government has an opportunity. I echo the call from Teachta Cullinane for the Minister of State to come back to the Chamber and give them the support and assurance they need.

I intend sharing time with my colleague, Deputy Sherlock.

I welcome the motion. I will set out some history for colleagues. The cuts were introduced in 2010. The Labour Party started unwinding FEMPI in October 2014. I am keen to set the record straight on that point.

I welcome to the Gallery my colleagues from the various unions, including my union, SIPTU, as well as all the workers who I have met on numerous occasions.

I listened to the speech of the Minister of State and I have a copy of it before me. I had a flashback to some years ago when I served in government and sat where the Minister of State is sitting. I remember when the Minister of State was in opposition. If he was in opposition now while this debate was under way I can imagine how he would perform. The Minister of State has certainly done a volte face and changed totally in the meantime. The Minister of State says he knows the issue needs to be addressed. He said it is complex and needs careful thought and consideration to reach a solution. Can the Minister of State imagine if it was three years ago and he was sitting in another seat? Can he imagine what he would have said? He would not have accepted the speech he has just given. He would not have accepted the speech put before him which he read with passion. I have no doubt the Minister of State has passion for the disability sector. I genuinely know that for many reasons, as the Minister of State is aware.

This is unacceptable. It is unacceptable that we are even discussing and debating the matter tonight. At the core of this is the fact that workers who are side by side are being paid two different wages through no fault of their own. We know there are up to 12,000 of them. We all know them. They are in all our constituencies. I have many relations and friends who work in section 39 organisations. The fact is these people, who have to be as qualified as their HSE counterparts, are being paid a different wage. That is unacceptable from a labour point of view and from the point of view of the health service they provide.

This is a point I am keen to explore. The services are being depleted. The service being delivered is being impacted by the fact that these people are leaving. I know this directly from highly qualified people working in the sector. In one case, a person spent six years in college. These people are leaving the service even though they have a vocation for the work they do in intellectual disabilities. They are leaving because they cannot live on the wages they are being paid - it is as simple as that. They cannot live or hope to prosper or move on in life and do the normal things that everyone does. This has to be addressed as a priority. This should be the number one priority for the Minister of State. He should deal with this as quickly as possible. This must be dealt with; it is not simply an anomaly.

It is not only about workers, although they are at the core of it. It is also about the service users. They are being badly affected. People will down tools. There will be a strike if the matter is not dealt with or if a pathway towards dealing with it is not found. These are reasonable people. They have been very patient but they have been left behind. They are going to have to take action. Is that what it is going to take? Is it going to have to get up to that stage for the Minister of State to do his job and actually stand over what he believes in? Do the Minister of State and the Independent Alliance have the capacity, despite all the talk, to deliver this in government? That is the core issue. Does the Minister of State have the capacity to deliver something so fundamental and something that he believes in for these workers and the service users? Service users are being affected because the workers cannot stay on the wages they are being paid. That is the key question for the Minister of State. I hope he will be able to answer it in the coming months for all concerned.

We are supporting the Fianna Fáil motion. I support some of the points made by members of Fianna Fáil, especially the Cork members and Deputy Michael Moynihan in particular. Deputy Moynihan referred to one of the organisations in Cork. Most Oireachtas Members from Cork met the organisation in the past week or so. Those involved articulated to us that they are in a position where they received approximately €17 million from the HSE. The overall turnover of the organisation is €20 million. The organisation gets additional moneys through various other subscriptions. Already, employers' liability insurance costs €500,000. The organisation is already down €500,000 on the €20 million before it opens its doors on 1 January.

I support the point made by Deputy Moynihan. We are hitting an inflexion point where the very existence of the section 39 organisations is being threatened by virtue of the fact that their overall costs are increasing exponentially such that their ability to deliver the essential services is being impeded and impinged in a major way.

The motion before us seeks to address the inequality that exists between workers who are doing the same job on the same shop floor but getting different rates of pay. It needs to be supported and I was hoping the Minister's response would contain a more thoughtful exposition of how difficult it is for section 39 workers who are seeking to have their rights vindicated. If there is a possibility of industrial action, it is not sufficient for the Minister to say it has been the subject of discussion between the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and the Minister for Health, or between their officials, for some time. He said the Minister for Health had instructed the HSE to enter into a process of engagement with section 39 agencies in the health sector to establish the factual position regarding pay reductions and restoration. Am I to interpret the Minister as saying there will be a move by Government to equalise the situation? The Minister is nodding but is he saying there will be a restoration of pay for section 39 workers? The Minister has stopped nodding but he is still smiling. I am hopeful there is something in the Minister's language that gives some comfort to those workers in advance of 14 February. I was hopeful there would be more clarity from the Minister because despite the fact that, as he stated, there was an extra €92 million spend on disability services in 2017, for which I give credit to him and his colleagues in the Independent Alliance, we are not seeing any evidence of it in the section 39 organisations which Oireachtas Members from Cork met last week. We need the Government to articulate how that extra spend is translating into real benefits for these organisations because they are still put to the pin of their collar and their future sustainability is still at risk.

We support the motion and I hope the engagement with the HSE leads ultimately to the restoration of pay.

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following:

“notes that:

— there are many Section 39 organisations that receive funding from the Health Service Executive (HSE), though the true figure is unknown even by the HSE;

— these include hospices, disability organisations and other agencies that play a vital role in providing key services for communities across the country;

— Section 39 agencies had pay linkages, for many years, with the public service apart from pensions and received correspondence from the HSE directing them to apply the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) cuts;

— the Labour Court has made recommendations on this long-standing and accepted linkage and employers in the sector have conceded on the arguments from the union side on restoration but cite the absence of funding from the Government to meet their obligations;

— hospices receive up to 70 per cent of their funding from the State and are now facing service cuts;

— Section 39 employees work as hard and as diligently as those working in the public service and face the same recruitment challenges;

— current pay reductions will have a negative impact on the ability to recruit;

— there was an expectation that pay cuts in Section 39 organisations would replicate the FEMPI cuts made in the public service and, therefore, an expectation that FEMPI pay corrections would also apply;

— the HSE are saying they need extra funding to correct the anomalies;

— the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is expecting the funding to be found without acknowledging that this will have a significant impact on services;

— this current position is fundamentally unfair to Section 39 employers and staff; and

— the Government’s response to the valid concerns raised by Section 39 organisations has been dismissive and has added to the feeling of frustration and anxiety felt by the employees of Section 39 organisations;

welcomes and supports the action of workers affected due to take place on 14th February and urges all workers in Section 39 workplaces, and across the health service, to support this campaign for pay restoration;

further notes that workers will demonstrate outside the Department of Health on 14th February and urges public support for that demonstration in the absence of clear Government intervention and a commitment to adequately fund these organisations to provide for pay restoration for these workers; and

calls on the Government to:

— address the anomalies and reimburse the FEMPI cuts as was expected;

— recognise that both the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Health need to take responsibility for this issue, primarily in order to prevent services being cut as a result of their ongoing inertia;

— cease passing the buck between departments and prevent cuts being applied to services in order to allow staff to have their FEMPI cuts restored;

— undertake a detailed analysis and commit to a process to reimburse the Section 39 employees who have been paid public service rates and who had the FEMPI cuts applied to them;

— fully implement the Finance Reform programme in the HSE so that Section 39 and Section 38 organisations can be easily identified; and

— integrate all Section 39 workers fully into the public sector and bestow upon them the same rights and entitlements, including pension rights, as their public service comparators.”

Solidarity stands four square behind the thousands of section 39 workers who are fighting for pay justice and preparing, if necessary, for industrial action next month. The Government and the HSE must see sense before the deadline for the action. If they do not, the responsibility for any ensuing disruption and stress will be entirely on their shoulders, including those of the Minister.

We have submitted an amended version of the motion for a number of reasons. The employers in the section 39 sector have conceded the argument in the Labour Court that their employees should receive pay restoration in line with their public sector comparators but cited an ability to pay, passing the buck to the Government which funds the wages of their employees. The Government's responsibility is correctly the main focus of this debate. That said, we should keep some of the spotlight on the employers too. The State provides funds to more than 1,300 section 39, section 38 and private companies for salaries and public services delivered on behalf of the State. Many of these organisations have a salaried chief executive, and we all recall the scandal of chief executive pay at Rehab, and their own boards of management. This, ultimately, is no way to run public services, nor is it a way of ensuring people across the State receive the care they need at various stages of their life. Many of these organisations, with origins in the religious orders, have a record of hostility to or non-recognition of unions and have historically sought to take advantage of the commitment of their employees by regarding their jobs as vocations rather than careers which should be properly rewarded.

There is an element of piety in the Fianna Fáil motion which gives the incorrect impression that the interests of workers and employers in the sector are one and the same. They are not. Our amended version of the motion seeks to delete two clauses which call for the strike action to be deferred, as we do not agree with that. Beside the SIPTU membership in the sector, other unions, including Fórsa, Unite and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, organise in this sector and the action on 14 February would be much more effective if they were to join the action.

Our amended version of the motion also mentions that section 39 workers never enjoyed all the conditions of the public service in respect of pensions. I have no confidence at all that the 1,300 or more organisations are capable of administering a defined benefit pension fund for their employees. For this and other reasons, these workers should ultimately be fully integrated into the public service. Our support for the restoration of the link, in so far as there was a pay link between section 39 workers and their public service comparators, should not be interpreted as acceptance of the remaining legacy of attacks on public service pay and conditions. Two-tier pay and other cuts to allowances and premia need to be addressed, as do the issues of the pension levy and real pay rises, reflecting the cost of living increases coinciding with the last decade of pay stagnation.

The current set-up of section 39 organisations is a vestige of our past dependence on the church, church institutions and charities plugging a gap in health care, hospices and care of the disabled. In the 21st century, this method of public service delivery should be redundant. We need an Irish national health service which takes the majority of section 39 organisations into the public health system and allows for public service pay rates and pension rates for all their staff across the board.

I welcome the opportunity to address the motion and talk about our amendment. I welcome all the workers to the House. It is only because of their determination to take some action that we are discussing this today. Standing up for oneself is crucial in this day and age and it is fundamental to getting change.

Workers have been left behind to a huge degree in this so-called recovery. In the recovery, we have seen profits, economic growth and property prices rising but the share of the national wealth that was taken from workers and given over to employers and profits has not been restored to those workers, in particular in the case of public sector workers. Further down the pecking order, the section 39 workers are those who have been penalised the most. It is no accident that we have seen an extraordinary increase in precarious contracts in all of the sectors, with zero hours, low hours and minimum pay rates being applied. There is a war on workers in this country and a war on wages, and in this war the Government has supported the employers and the wealthy. I am shocked to hear the Minister, a former trade union activist, say it is too complicated to restore the pay of these workers. If it was too complicated to restore it, how come it was not complicated to cut it in the first place? I do not believe his priority should be getting profits back to where they were in 2008. It should be rather about getting services and workers' rights back and restoring pay levels these workers absolutely need. This injustice will lead to industrial action in which we will fully support the workers.

I am sure the irony of those on all sides of this House, including those in power at the moment and those who were in power in the previous Government, who brought in the FEMPI legislation, falling over themselves to support section 39 workers will not be lost on those workers. The workers can only rely on themselves to get change.

If I were them, I would not be trusting any element of the political class to deliver on their behalf. There is a force they can rely on, namely, the force of their own power and their own ability to make the Government listen to them and ensure that the restoration happens. It will not happen by platitudes from the Minister of State's side of the House.

There is a connection between the crisis in our health services and the fact that we have section 38 and section 39 workers, who provide vital public services in disability, mental health and cancer treatment. These vital services are, in the main, provided by charitable organisations stemming from the legacy of Catholic charities dominating the health service. The last section of our amendment calls for all section 39 workers to be fully integrated into the public service and to have the same rights and entitlements bestowed on them, including pension rights, public service comparators and the full restoration of FEMPI cuts. We cannot continue to deliver services in a society that treats these workers differently and in which these services are delivered differently and largely depend on charity for their funding.

I know people in the community sector, as I am sure does the Minister of State, who are told that although they should restore the FEMPI pay cuts to themselves as has been directed by the Minister for Finance, they will not be getting the money to do it and will have to cut some of their services. We cannot continue to allow that happen, nor can we continue to allow the workers be penalised. The workers do not accept the argument that it is complicated to restore their pay or that there are all sorts of machinations that have to be considered. We commend our amendment to the House and fully support the action the workers are about to take. It can only be avoided if their pay is fully restored by the Government between now and the date of strike action.

Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan is sharing time with Deputies Tommy Broughan and Michael Fitzmaurice.

I will take two minutes, Deputy Broughan five and Deputy Fitzmaurice two.

We have a long way to go before people with a disability, their carers and those who work with them feel they are getting the same respect as others in society. We take very easily to cutting funding for people with a disability, yet even a slight suggestion that we would increase corporation tax is treated with derision.

Almost a year ago, there was a meeting between the Minister for Health, Department officials and the Irish Wheelchair Association. Certain actions were agreed to try to bring about a quick resolution to this matter. Obviously, there has not been a resolution. We know the background, namely, the cut to the funding that was made in 2009. In the public pay sector, funding is now being restored. However, it is only available to section 38 workers and not section 39 organisations. Historically, these workers were linked to the HSE pay scales. It is unjust that among workers who are providing disability services for the State and are employed by the HSE, those working for a section 38 agency are on one salary while those doing the exact same work under a section 39 agency are on a different pay scale.

The section 39 agencies are, as we know, under obligation to award the restored pay scales as per the various Lansdowne Road and public pay agreements. Where is the funding going to come from so that they can honour those agreements? The danger is that the impact will be on services and that there will be an impact on section 39 agencies retaining staff. This is a matter of justice for section 39 workers. They were public servants when it came to taking the pay cut but suddenly they are not public servants when it comes to pay restoration.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly on this very important motion on reimbursing staff of section 39 agencies. I raised the issue several times in this House during 2017 and, in particular, in support of the claims of the workers of the Irish Wheelchair Association. I made several representations to the Ministers for Health and Public Expenditure and Reform and, indeed, to the Taoiseach during Leaders’ Questions on 21 June last year. The Taoiseach, of course, gave the usual disingenuous answer by saying he would take a dim view of any organisation that used its block grant to give the proper increases to its workforce. I also wrote to the Taoiseach and to the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Harris, on 19 December asking that they intervene and provide the requisite additional funding to the HSE urgently. I also raised the matter at the Committee on Budgetary Oversight in the context of budget 2018.

The additional funding is long overdue following the Labour Court recommendation of 20 November, which found that pay scales between staff of section 39 organisations and public servants in the same roles in section 38 organisations and the HSE generally are indeed aligned and therefore must be restored. At the end of March last year, the Not for Profit Association, of which the Irish Wheelchair Association is a member, met the HSE to discuss the matter of pay restoration for member organisations and their staff. While the staff of section 39 organisations are not technically State employees, their pay scales had been historically aligned and during the crash the same pay cuts were imposed on section 39 staff. The HSE’s and the State’s refusal to provide additional funding to realign these pay scales has put these vital agencies and organisations under great strain, as Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan has just described.

The HSE directed that the Irish Wheelchair Association, IWA, would have to go through the State’s industrial relations machinery to determine whether the pay scales were aligned and pay restoration due. The IWA and SIPTU took part in a conciliation conference which was unsuccessful because of the obduracy of the HSE and the State.

On 4 September, the matter was referred to the Labour Court. The Irish Wheelchair Association has never denied that pay restoration is due to its hard-working and dedicated staff, who are completing the same work as diligently as their counterparts in section 38 organisations but for less money. It has merely said that additional funding would be required from the HSE to meet those pay demands. The IWA was unable to meet pay restoration demands from 1 April last year. The Labour Court hearing was held on 31 October 2017 and provided its recommendations exactly in line with what we had expected. It recommended that the pay scales are indeed aligned and therefore pay restoration is due. I thank Mr. Paul Bell of SIPTU for giving us information around that process.

Before Christmas, a copy of the Labour Court recommendation LCR21609 was forwarded to the Taoiseach and the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Harris. It makes for very interesting reading, especially given the consistent statements in this House by those Ministers that pay was not linked between section 38 and section 39 organisations. We knew, of course, that this would be the outcome of the Labour Court recommendation and that those pay scales were indeed linked. During the crash, when pay cuts were imposed the recommendation was that if workers had benefited from pay linkages when salaries increased then they could not seek to break from those linkages when salaries went down. Of course, SIPTU put forward this same argument once pay restoration for public servants began under the Lansdowne Road agreement.

The Labour Court recommendation of 20 November stated: “The Court has given careful consideration to the submissions of both parties and is clear that the worker’s pay is clearly aligned with the HSE pay scales.” The last paragraph of the recommendation is of utmost importance. Many trade union representatives and leaders of these organisations fear that the current impasse is a delaying tactic by the Government and the HSE and that every section 39 organisation will have to go through the same long drawn-out industrial relations process. The Labour Court recommendation states:

It appears to the Court that one of the reasons that this matter is before it, is because the Employer feels obliged to do so, in order to satisfy an administrative requirement of the HSE, which is its main funder, rather than to seek a resolution. It is not a function of the Labour Court to provide an administrative endorsement to meet the requirements of a third party who is external to the case at hand and any process requiring such an endorsement could be considered, [sic] to be an abuse of the Industrial Relations process.

This is very clear, yet the additional funding has still not been forthcoming. The IWA wrote to the HSE on 24 November to seek confirmation of when the additional funding would be provided. Almost a month later, just before Christmas, the IWA had only received an acknowledgement of the letter. SIPTU has therefore advised the IWA that members will be balloted for strike action, set for 14 February 2018. The case has been very strongly made that these workers' pay scales should be restored. They were cut during the height of the bank bailout. I welcome the motion before us.

I commend Deputy Calleary on this motion, which I fully support. When the country hit a wall in 2009 and 2010, these workers were told they were the same as the HSE and that they had to take the cuts. They took them, like most people in middle Ireland, while at the same time the Government decided to put €65 billion into banks to make sure they were okay. Ordinary people right around the country struggled. Now that things are improving, the same workers under section 39 have been told they are different. This is intolerable for them.

In his speech, the Minister of State said he would look at the issue. There was nothing in it. I remember sitting beside him when we were in opposition. He would have jumped up and down if he saw workers being treated in such a way.

The Minister for Finance has pulled a cunning trick over the past number of years. Pay increases were announced, but the money was not given back to where it was needed. Whether the money has to come from the HSE or a different body, the Government has to give it. The funding needs to be provided immediately.

It is especially sickening that this debate is happening at a time when it has been announced in all the newspapers that ex-taoisigh and Deputies will receive increases of between €3,000 and €5,000. People in middle Ireland who have struggled throughout the past four or five years to pay their mortgages and raise their families, and who go out to work every day have been left in a situation whereby the Government did not care whether they got their funding back. As Deputies, we need to examine where all this is going.

Middle Ireland has not been given a fair say. Talk and sympathy does not put food on the table. Pay needs to be restored immediately to the 10,000 or 12,000 people affected. Fair play to those who protested outside the Dáil on a cold day like this. Paul Bell was with them. They need to ramp up their campaign if they are not being listened to. There is a duty on us, as politician, to act. While the motion will not solve the problem, there is a need for the Government to come out with a clear message and say that pay will be restored.

Deputies Michael Collins, Michael Harty and Mattie McGrath are sharing time.

I am happy to speak on this important motion and thank my colleague in Fianna Fáil for bringing it forward. Section 39 agencies include our local hospices, community and disability organisations and other health care providers who offer vital services to our communities. Groups like the Marymount hospice do incredible work for our sick family members and friends around Cork. Community and voluntary groups, such as meals on wheels, the Goleen community council or the Schull community care association, provide social services to the elderly under section 39 funding. Most section 39 agencies save the State tens of thousands of euro weekly and work hard throughout the year, including during the Christmas period - some organisations in west Cork worked on Christmas Day.

Employees of section 39 agencies experienced the same cuts as all public sector employees did under the FEMPI legislation over the past number of years, although they are only partially funded by the HSE. Including section 39 employees in FEMPI cuts seemed like a harsh measure at the time. However, this has now been amplified by the notice that section 39 employees are now not entitled to the same pay restoration as a other public service employees who were originally hit by the FEMPI cuts. This is not the first time that I have raised the issue of FEMPI pay restoration for public services, in particular our GPs and the detrimental effect FEMPI has had on their local surgeries.

Section 39 agencies provide necessary services to our elderly and sick people and take huge pressure off part-time care givers and family members. The threat of industrial action by these agencies is a cause of great stress and anxiety to service users, and the Government, along with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, must act immediately to rectify the pay differences in order to deter any possible strike action. The cost of industrial action to the State is far greater than the cost of restoring these anomalies.

It is simply not good enough that certain groups can be excluded from the Government finance reform programme, and the fact that the Government and HSE has treated section 39 employees with such contempt is disgraceful. This is similar to other wrongdoings on the part of the Government. The west Cork development partnership delivered a Government Leader programme for up to 20 years. When the previous Government kicked it out, it did not have the decency to give the staff their statutory notice or their proper redundancy entitlements. Instead, people were only offered advice. The remainder of the company was under charitable organisation status. We have turned into a great country. Section 39 employees got up early in the morning and delivered a top-class Leader programme for over 20 years in west Cork, but were treated disgracefully by the Government, just like it treated the issue of women's pension.

All our health care workers, whether in fully funded or partially funded HSE roles, are worked to the bone. This issue was highlighted most recently in the horrific trolley crisis over the Christmas period. I plead with the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, and the Government to examine these anomalies and restore pay to section 39 employees without further delay.

I wish to concentrate on two issues in respect of section 39 organisations. One is the financial sustainability, viability and quality of care section 39 organisations provide. Pay is an issue, but the provision of quality care to patients is paramount. Section 39 organisations supply essential services to patients, which are not provided by the HSE. They provide those services on behalf of the HSE. There is an expectation that they will provide the same quality of service as section 38 organisation organisations which are completely funded through the public service.

The other issue is the training of staff. Quite often, section 39 organisations are training grounds for other organisations. When staff have completed their training, they are poached by section 38 organisations or the HSE, because they have been trained to a very high standard, at a cost to the section 39 organisation. Section 39 organisations are suffering from a lack of continuity of care and professionals who are providing that care. Paradoxically, staff are being poached by the HSE, a Government-funded organisation which has reduced funding to section 39 organisations.

Section 39 organisations strive to supply the same level of care and service which is provided through publicly-funded services such as section 38 organisations, yet they have great difficulty in doing so. There is an imbalance between section 38 and section 39 organisations. Quite often, section 38 and 39 organisations are working side-by-side and are supplying the same service. Service users do not care how an organisation which is supplying a service to them is funded; they just want the same quality of service. When the Minister of State said section 39 organisations were not obliged to pass on pay cuts, that is not quite correct. They were advised that they should take into account what was happening in the public service and observe the pay reductions which were being inflicted on the public service. While organisations were not told they had to reduce pay, they were certainly given a very strong indication that they should do so. There is no rhyme or reason for having a discrepancy between section 38 and section 39 organisations.

Deputy Michael Collins referred to FEMPI. It is not just section 39 organisations which were subject to FEMPI. Self-employed people such as GPs were also subjected to it, and they are expected to provide a level of service as they did prior to FEMPI, despite having had substantial reductions made to their resources.

I, too, compliment Deputy Calleary for putting down the motion. The nice flowery language from the Ministers of State, Deputies Finian McGrath and Jim Daly, will not help the people in the Gallery and those who protested outside. In my book, fair play is fine play. Everyone had to take the cuts, except the preserved few, including senior civil servants. They were also exonerated from having to pay the pension levy.

Section 39 organisations are invaluable. Section 38 organisations also do valuable work, but section 39 organisations employees are being discriminated against. Many of us have had our loved ones looked after day in, day out in hospices. Meals on wheels operate in every town in Tipperary, from Carrick-on-Suir to Clonmel, Cahir, Cashel, Tipperary town, north Tipperary, Thurles and everywhere else.

The Minister of State might say that organisations were not told to impose cuts, but they were expected to do so and it was demanded of them. Voluntary boards run many section 39 organisations. The Irish Wheelchair Association runs on a voluntary basis and has to do significant fundraising to keep afloat. Such organisations have to pay for insurance and everything else. We have the dreaded HIQA imposing guidelines on organisations. One section of the HSE is telling another to do something, but the HSE will not pay for it.

The Government is not stepping up to the plate and paying people. The Government and the Department should remunerate employees appropriately. We discussed equality in many areas. Where is the equality in this? These people give sterling service.

As Deputy Harty said, many of them are poached, and rightly so, because they are good workers. They are keen, trained and up for it. They want to work and play a valuable part in society. All they want is a modicum of respect. The Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, might think the Department will get their services on the cheap but it will not because that destroys the community spirit and ethos of the organisations.

There have been hints that the situation might be sorted out. The Department should carry out a proper audit of how many section 39 organisations exist. It has not done this. We also need to know how many employees they have and the costs involved. The Department must make a reasonable effort to look at the situation holistically and fairly and provide a roadmap as to how it will sort out the matter. Fair play is fine play but this stinks. We have money to bail out the bankers and for many other areas as well. Let us take, for example, the money the HSE spends on legal bills, PR, and reports that are gathering dust on shelves every day of the week. The Department should pay the people a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. All people want is equality with the section 38 organisations and other organisations.

The Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, must act up. It is a pity the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, has left the Chamber because when he used to sit here we could not keep him quiet. He was always on the attack and defending disability organisations in particular.

I have been a trade unionist from the very first day I went to work, which was summer work in Clonmel Foods in Clonmel. I joined the Irish Transport and General Workers Union as it was then. I then moved to work in Bulmers where I became a member of the Federation of Rural Workers. Following that, I moved to a leather factory where I became a member of the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union, now Unite. Since then I have been a member of the Irish Local Government Officials' Union, which became the Local Government and Public Services Union, which then became IMPACT and in recent weeks Fórsa. I have also been president of Clonmel Trades and Labour Council.

I support the workers in the section 39 organisations who are faced with having to withdraw their labour on 14 February because the Department of Health and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform simply will not face up to their responsibilities and pay them the correct rates of pay and ensure pay restoration for them. I hope they are not forced onto the streets by the Government and by the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, who as another speaker said, would be singing a very different tune if he were on this side of the House.

There is no doubt the work being done by the section 39 organisations extends right across the country and is essential for all kinds of work in the health and community areas. I support the motion, especially the amendment tabled by Solidarity-PBP. It is worth referring to what the motion outlines. The amendment calls on the Government to address the anomalies and reimburse the FEMPI cuts as was expected; to recognise that both the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Health need to take responsibility for this issue, primarily in order to prevent services being cut as a result of their ongoing inertia; to cease passing the buck between Departments and prevent cuts being applied to services in order to allow staff to have their FEMPI cuts restored; to undertake a detailed analysis and commit to a process to reimburse the section 39 employees who have been paid public service rates and who had the FEMPI cuts applied to them; to fully implement the finance reform programme in the HSE so that section 39 and section 38 organisations can be easily identified; and to integrate all section 39 workers fully into the public sector and bestow upon them the same rights and entitlements, including pension rights, as their public service comparators.

There is a lot in the amendment but it is essential that what is sought would be done from the point of view of fairness to the employees, the organisations involved and the services they provide. If the Department refuses to come up with the money, there is a strong possibility that services being provided by the organisations will be badly affected and there will be a knock-on effect on service users. This is a very black and white situation. The workers in question have been always paid the same rate as public service employees. They took the cuts when public service employees took the cuts. They were told they simply had no choice but to do that. However, now they are being told that although they took the cuts they will not get the restoration. That is simply not good enough. The situation must change. The workers in question must be supported. I commend Paul Bell, the official responsible for dealing with the matter, who sent us some information.

Numerous organisations have been mentioned that would be affected by the situation. I wish to refer briefly to an organisation with which I have been involved from the day of its foundation, namely, Cuan Saor or Safe Haven, a women's refuge. It is a section 39 organisation that was established in 1994. I have been involved with it since then and I am currently a member of the board and have been for many years. The organisation provides a range of services for women affected by domestic violence. Information, advice and refuge are provided. Accommodation is also provided as a building was sourced in 2000 and the refuge currently has four units available for women and children who are in difficulty. There is also a 24-hour helpline. Support and information is provided on a drop-in basis and by appointment. Counselling is also provided. Outreach services are provided in all the towns throughout south Tipperary, in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary town, Killenaule and Ballingarry. A very important court accompaniment service is also provided by staff of Cuan Saor. This domestic violence support organisation that is based in Clonmel and which covers all of south Tipperary also provides an aftercare service, in addition to training and awareness raising and child and family support. That is the type of organisation whose staff is affected by the refusal of the Department to ensure pay restoration. It is unacceptable that the services of such organisations, including hospice groups and many others, would be affected. I support the motion, in particular the Solidarity-PBP amendment, and call on the Government to deal with this matter urgently and to agree to the pay restoration for staff in the section 39 organisations. Otherwise, there will be very serious difficulties for the organisations, their staff and the services they provide.

I congratulate my colleague, Deputy Calleary, on bringing forward this critical motion. The section 39 organisations and their workers have been providing vital services across the country for many years.

In County Wicklow St. Catherine's Association is well known. The National Learning Network in Bray provides vital resources for people who have had accidents and those with an illness or a disability. The Irish Wheelchair Association is very active in County Wicklow. Enable Ireland is very active in Bray. These bodies are critical to the local community, particularly people with disabilities and those with a wide range of other issues.

What happened? The pay of the staff was linked with public sector pay levels. We know this because there is a Labour Court judgment to that effect. During the crash the organisations were instructed to reduce staff wages just like in public sector bodies. Although public sector wage levels are going back up and restoration is occurring, workers in section 39 organisations are not getting an increase.

I acknowledge that the Government is not going against Fianna Fáil's motion. I put it to the Minister of State, however, that the statement from the Government is utterly disingenuous. It claims the cuts had nothing to do with the HSE in terms of how the organisations passed on the cuts. We all know that is not true. The wages of section 39 workers were linked with public sector pay levels and the organisations had to reduce wage levels in line with the FEMPI legislation. We all know that happened, but now the Government is stating it is not really the case and that if the organisations want to increase wages, it has nothing to do with it. Of course, it does because the money comes from it to do so.

I ask the Government to rethink seriously, acknowledge in the House that there was a link and acknowledge the work of section 39 organisation staff and that their pay should be restored as it is for their colleagues in the public sector.

I thank Deputy Dara Calleary for introducing the motion. More importantly, I acknowledge the work carried out by the employees of section 39 organisations. Without their work, the lives of many people who depend on them would be adversely affected. It is important to remember this in the light of potential industrial action.

I am disappointed with the response of the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, who stated section 39 organisation workers were not public servants and, therefore, not covered by the public service stability agreements. He said that point was crucial. Last year the director general of the HSE, Mr. Tony O'Brien, made a very similar point when addressing the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health. The Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, said section 39 organisations were not obliged to pass on any pay reduction to their staff members. That is simply not accurate or true. If the Minister of State believes that, no wonder we cannot go about resolving the issue.

Around the time the Rehab group had a number of issues, at the request of the Minister for Health, the HSE wrote to the CEOs of all section 39 agencies outlining health sector pay policy and requesting each of them to have due regard to it, particularly in the case of senior management. On 7 October 2013 a letter was written by the HSE to a particular organisation which referred specifically to section 39 agencies. It stated that while the immediate focus on the implementation of the Haddington Road agreement within the health service had centred on public bodies and public servants, that is, the HSE and section 38 bodies, the clear intention was that all agencies, including section 39 agencies, were to make an appropriate and proportionate contribution to the implementation of payroll and related cost-reduction measures in line with other publicly funded bodies. The intention was very clear. There was a very direct link. As staff in other organisations are receiving pay restoration, the employees of section 39 organisations have every entitlement to receive an increase and in a timely fashion.

I, too, compliment Deputy Dara Calleary on introducing this important motion. Section 39 organisations have lobbied us all and we see the great work they all do in our communities.

Fairness in all Government decisions should be the standard. We have seen that, in government since 2011, fairness has been sacrificed in search of financial savings. Time after time, we saw decisions being made in which the Government sacrificed the rights of ordinary people, while at the same time allowing vulture funds to operate completely unregulated in the country. This is another example of the unfairness to which I refer.

Section 39 health organisations provide vital health services for society and communities throughout the country. They include hospices, disability organisations and other agencies. The Government has completely washed its hands of the issue and for far too long has dismissed it.

The Health Act 2004 covers section 38 and section 39 organisations. Employees in section 38 organisations are public sector workers and thus subject to pay restoration. Section 39 employees technically are not public sector workers. Traditionally, however, pay levels in section 39 organisations shadowed pay levels in section 38 organisations and the public sector as a whole. This meant that in 2009 and 2010 the HSE reduced the grants paid to section 39 organisations. It communicated with the organisations and the cut in funding was applied to the payroll of each organisation.

When pay restoration began in the public sector, it was not reflected in the grants paid to section 39 organisations. Someone in a section 39 organisation doing the same work as someone else in the public sector is now being paid less for it. This has an effect on a section 39 organisation's ability to retain or recruit staff. The disparity is affecting the provision of vital services, on which people rely. I plead with the Government to recognise the unfairness in that regard and ensure pay restoration in section 39 organisations happens immediately.

I, too, welcome the opportunity to add my few words of support in order to have this Private Members' motion to restore the pay of section 39 employees carried. I commend Deputy Dara Calleary for initiating the process to expedite a positive outcome. I welcome the service providers and staff present in the Visitors Gallery, especially the representatives I met from St. Joseph's Foundation in Charleville.

Day in and day out, legislators have been urged to close the gender pay gap and pay new entrants to the workplace the same wages as those in similar employment who do the same work. There is blatant pay discrimination against the staff of section 39 organisations who effectively carry out the same duties, engage in the same practices and deliver the same services as staff in section 38 organisations.

Section 39 organisations, like their sister institutions, accepted severe cuts in funding during the economic downturn. The majority of the cuts were to the pay package of the employees and management who, it must be acknowledged, did well to deliver their services during the recession-hit days. As stated in a letter received from SIPTU, their members' pay was reduced in 2010 and 2012 directly in line with the reductions affecting their public service equivalents as a direct consequence of an historical pay link. The historical pay link is the issue.

On 8 November 2017 the Taoiseach confirmed to my party leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, that there was an established pay link between section 39 agencies and the public service. The Government and the HSE have been hiding behind the bloc grant allocation mechanism, which is like throwing sheep to wolves. It was a matter of making the management of section 39 organisations make the hard call on how to divide their spend.

We must also acknowledge that many section 39 organisations have gone above and beyond the call of duty in facilitating the provision of extra services with no extra financial resources. An example is St. Joseph's Foundation in Charleville, which came to the aid of the HSE when Grove House in Cork was closed. While the foundation took in some residents, the appropriate budgetary funding did not follow. I ask the Minister to sign the draft for the pay increase.

I commend my colleague Deputy Dara Calleary for introducing this motion on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party to highlight the issue of inequality, the need for pay restoration for workers in section 39 organisations and the Government's complete ambivalence in this matter. Section 39 health organisations such as Enable Ireland, Rehab, Cheshire Homes and the hospice in Kildare provide vital services for individuals, society and local communities throughout the country. I welcome the workers who are present in the Visitors Gallery for the debate.

The Government has completely washed its hands of this issue and for far too long dismissed it. This has caused considerable stress and frustration for section 39 organisation workers who, understandably, feel undervalued and under-appreciated.

In 2009 and 2010 the HSE reduced the grants paid to section 39 organisations. It was communicated that the cut in funding was to be applied to the organisations' payroll to ensure the salaries paid to those in section 39 agencies would be the same as those in section 38 agencies. That was fair enough, but the Minister cannot have it both ways. When pay restoration began to happen in the public sector, it was not reflected in the grants paid to section 39 organisations. Their workers are already disadvantaged because they do not have access to public service pensions. At this point, they are trebly disadvantaged, with no access to public service pensions, no increments and no pay restoration. Accordingly, section 39 organisations are struggling to retain and recruit staff. This disparity is impacting on and affecting the provision of vital services, on which we all rely. This is creating a two-tier system, similar to what is happening in the case of teachers which is equally wrong. However, that argument is for another day. We are pitting section 38 and section 39 organisations against each other. If section 39 organisations were to stop doing what they do, it would cost the State far more to provide these vital services. In many cases, they would simply not be provided.

This is all about the service users and what they should have. They need consistency, compassionate and capable professionals who are valued and appreciated on every level, including financially.

I thank all Members for their contributions to the debate on the motion on the important matter of pay restoration for staff in section 39 agencies. It is clear from the contributions made in the House that we are all agreed that there is an issue which needs to be addressed. However, it is a complex one which will need careful thought and consideration to reach a solution. Like my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, I have sympathy for the workers employed in section 39 organisations who find themselves affected by this issue. The motion refers to feelings of frustration and anxiety. I fully appreciate that the situation must be difficult and frustrating. I represent older people who benefit from the services provided by section 39 agencies. I must stress that the work and contribution of the staff in these agencies are highly valued and appreciated. The successful development of palliative care services has been based on a long-standing tradition of positive engagement between the voluntary and statutory sectors. It is the Government's desire that everyone be provided with the type of palliative care service he or she needs, regardless of his or her diagnosis, age or where he or she will die.

Government funding for palliative care services has increased steadily in the past five budgets to €78.2 million in 2017. We now have 223 specialist palliative care beds at 11 locations countrywide. The majority of these beds, 143, are located in section 39 hospices. We plan to open a further 110 beds in the next five years. All HSE areas have community specialist palliative home care teams which play a vital role in enabling people to die at home. Specialist palliative day care is provided at seven locations.

We have achieved much in a few short years, but there is no room for complacency. Many challenges remain, particularly the need to ensure geographical equity of access to specialist palliative care. In budget 2018, in recognition of the work undertaken by the charity sector, the Government introduced a VAT compensation refund scheme to compensate charities for the VAT they incurred on their inputs. The scheme took effect from 1 January and will refunds be made one year in arrears. This commitment will assist to reduce the burden on charities.

The Government is committed to working in co-operation with voluntary sector organisations, including section 39 providers, to continue to ensure Ireland will have a palliative care service which is recognised as one of the best in the world. That is one of the reasons the Government is not opposing the Fianna Fáil motion. We know that there is an issue which needs to be addressed. As stated, however, it is a complex one which will need careful thought and consideration before agreeing a solution that will be acceptable to all.

Under section 39 of the Health Act 2004, the HSE funds organisations by means of grants. It has in place service level agreements with voluntary providers which set out the level of service to be provided for the grant paid to the individual organisation. The grants can range from a high value in the millions of euro to a low value of just a few thousand euro. On the scale involved, in 2016 the HSE provided over €874 million in grants for 2,240 organisations under section 39 of the Health Act 2004.

The motion calls for the FEMPI, financial emergency measures in the public interest, cuts to be reversed, as was expected. However, employees of section 39 organisations are not public servants and, therefore, not covered by the public service stability agreements. This point is crucial and accepted by all sides of the argument.

Calls for all staff in the organisations to be made public servants simply cannot be agreed to by the State. Adding potentially 100,000 people to the numbers in the public service cannot be afforded by the Exchequer. Budgets were cut across the public service during the financial crisis and everyone was expected to make savings. Given that the large part of the budgets of section 39 organisations is spent on pay, the pay budget was going to be focused on.

It was supposed to be focused on.

While it is understood pay cuts were imposed on section 39 employees, often we are relying on anecdotal evidence as to how they were applied. Different measures such as increment freezes, pauses in recruitment and reducing staff numbers may also have been used. I was happy to hear the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, advise the House that the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, had instructed the HSE to enter into a process of engagement with section 39 agencies in the health sector to establish the factual position on pay reductions and pay restoration. It is anticipated that this process will produce the necessary clarity, as well as transparency, and, ultimately, an agreed way forward for all parties involved. I also strongly support this move and hope it will bring about a resolution to avoid what none of us wants, namely, industrial action.

I have devoted my time as Minister of State with responsibility for services for older people to working towards developing improved services and increasing investment. Overall funding for older person services will increase from €763 million in 2017 to €811 million in 2018. This additional funding was hard fought for and I am aware of our responsibility, as public representatives, to ensure the best value is achieved for this money.

There is no dispute or disagreement about the contribution made by the workers of section 39 charities to the well-being of citizens. Every side of the House acknowledges, appreciates and recognises the work and contribution they make. It will take time to evaluate fully what happened in section 39 agencies. There is disparity across the agencies as a blanket pay cut was not applied. Staff in many of them may have had one, but others may not. We are looking for time to enter into the process to engage with all section 39 organisations, as the Minister has instructed the HSE to do. In its motion Solidarity-People Before Profit call for a detailed analysis to be undertaken of what happened during the financial downturn. I appeal to Deputies on all sides to work with us to ensure we have a speedy, right, proper and moral resolution of this issue.

I commend my colleague Deputy Dara Calleary for bringing this motion before the House.

Section 39 organisations provide essential services in local areas which might otherwise be overlooked. Given that the staff of section 39 organisations are categorised as not being public servants, why did the HSE make them subject to the FEMPI legislatin cuts? The matter is further exacerbated by the fact that the HSE is unable to identify the full number of section 39 organisations in existence. Section 39 organisations complied with the measures in good faith. However, they now find themselves left behind as their section 38 colleagues who do exactly the same work are benefiting from pay restoration.

This is grossly unfair and will impact greatly on organisations across west Cork. These organisations are of great assistance to the people of west Cork, as the Minister of State knows. How can one expect employees to remain with these services when they can receive as much as 10% more by working with section 38 organisations? Employees of section 39 organisations cannot be expected to accept such unfairness and, to avoid industrial action and the negative impact that this will have, it is imperative for the Government to address the matter with the relevant Departments and ensure that these workers receive the payments that they are entitled to receive.

I commend my colleague, Deputy Calleary, for bringing forward this important Private Members' business. The Minister of State does not need me to tell him the important work that section 39 organisations and their staff do, or about the work that they provide at a very difficult juncture for our health service. They need our support. I think the Minister of State is being disingenuous, or at least his Department is when it tries to suggest that the motivation behind this motion is to somehow make public servants out of these staff. We are trying to get a correlation between the wages paid to people who do exactly the same work. The Minister of State and the Department know that the directive issued was issued to ensure that the staff in section 39 organisations had their pay cut to the same level as public servants. All we are asking is for parity of esteem and that, as the economy has improved, for people to be treated in the same manner. The work that these people do is extraordinary. It is done in difficult circumstances and is emotionally draining. They are under pressure and need to believe that the State is treating them adequately and fairly. There is an opportunity to do that now. The Minister of State does not need to kick it to touch. He can accept that these people are not trying to get all the benefits associated with being public servants but they expect to be paid equally for equal work. I implore the Minister of State, on behalf of everybody in this House, to stop the filibuster, to call out the Department and to say to it that this is the right thing to do and to do it.

We have done it ourselves. We are not civil servants. We took pay cuts in line with the section of the Civil Service that we are linked to, as principal officers. The Minister of State is linked to an assistant secretary, and Ministers are linked to Secretaries General. We are not civil servants. Our pay was reduced in line with their pay. Our pay is being restored in line with their pay. The Minister of State should do the same for section 39 workers.

I only have a short time so I must be brief. We know there were significant cutbacks across all public services as a result of the economic downturn. As the economy has improved in recent years, many sections of our public services have seen restoration of pay and conditions. However, our section 39 agencies are being largely ignored and as a result they are now facing serious dilemmas on the ground. In my county, Kilkenny, I receive regular contact from section 39 agencies on this matter. One such agency, SOS Kilkenny, which I welcome to the Public Gallery, provides a vital life service to people in need of service for disabilities and of palliative care and greatly enhances the quality of life through opportunities of social inclusion for their service users. This is very important work. It has endured an annual financial deficit of €100,000 for some time and has begged, borrowed and stolen to hang on to its very talented and passionate staff and keep the show on the road. That has been happening for four or five years. This position is simply not sustainable and such problems are being echoed all across the section 39 sector. We must enable section 39 agencies to be able to pay and look after their staff. These workers are very well trained and have a genuine vocation for the important work they do and we must keep them and pay them what they are worth. We cannot afford to lose them because they cannot afford to live on what they are being paid. It is an unthinkable situation in 2018.

We must also remember the service users all across the country whose lives are greatly improved as a result of the crucial work done by our section 39 agencies and workers. They are the ones who will ultimately suffer a downgrade or interruption in services and a lowering of general standards if we cannot hang on to the great staff we have in this sector. They are well-educated, well-trained passionate people who do crucial work. We are reliably informed that section 39 workers are being headhunted and pinched from the agencies they work for because the agencies cannot afford to offer them the same level of pay and benefits that are offered elsewhere. That includes the HSE, which is pilfering employees from section 39 agencies because it is able to pay more money since its increments were improved. It is important to point out that if we end up in a situation in which services are interrupted or removed, it will become the responsibility of the State to care for the service users which will ultimately cost more than pay restoration and equality. I hope the Minister of State will take these concerns into consideration. If we lose these services, they will come back on to the State and cost the taxpayer more in the long run.

I thank my colleagues for speaking in this debate on all sides. We used to have Teflon politicians. The Ministers of State, Deputies Jim Daly and Finian McGrath, are Tesla politicians because they think their Department is driverless. They think that they are not the Ministers of State in charge of the Department, that one is not the Minister of State with responsibility for older persons and the other is not the Minister of State with responsibility for disability services, based on the response the Minister of State, Deputy McGrath, gave this evening. He repeated the line that section 39 organisations are not obliged to pass on any pay reductions to their staff members, absolutely ignoring the instruction from the HSE to organisations in 2013 to apply reductions directly to staff costs. The Minister of State spoke about complexity and how we would recompense staff. I suggest that he recompenses them in line with the comment that section 39 organisations are to make an appropriate, proportionate contribution to the implementation of payroll and related cost reduction measures.

May I suggest that the Government make an appropriate and proportionate contribution to the implementation of pay restoration measures in the same fashion that it instructed organisations to in 2013? That would solve that conundrum. The Minister of State, Deputy McGrath, was slightly detached from the notion that the industrial action pending on 14 February has something to do with him. He made the plaintive cry that we should try to resolve that. He is the Minister of State with responsibility for disability and Deputy Daly is the Minister of State with responsibility for older persons' services. They can do something about it and actually take action on this motion this evening. They should not treat it like they treat all other Private Members' motions where they know that they will lose it so they will let it through and do nothing about it. They should do something about this one. I will hold the Ministers of State to do something about this. If those workers who work so hard in section 39 organisations decide they have no other option on 14 February, Valentine's Day, but to go to the picket lines, on the Ministers' watch be it. On their watch be it where families and services will be impacted and where communities will have their services impacted. The Ministers of State keep parroting the line that these staff are not public servants and have nothing to do with financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI. That is the evidence that they have. They were good enough to be instructed to take a pay cut but the Minister of State does not want to hear about them when it concerns pay restoration.

I agree with the Minister of State's sentiments about palliative care. We acknowledge the enormous improvements that have happened in palliative care but tonight there will be palliative care nurses in the last minutes and last hours of patients' lives. They will be there with distraught families. When they go and get their pay cheque tomorrow or tomorrow week, it will be less than what they would have got had they been employed by the HSE. They do amazing work and the Minister of State is right to point to the development but if he is that committed to and that passionate about palliative care, then pay the nurses properly. Pay the disability workers properly and the people who will spend nine or ten hours tonight in a respite house with people with a disability. Respect them not with just words or platitudes, but in their pay cheque. Respect their qualifications as professionals. They get up early in the morning. The Minister of State's leader is fond of that phrase. They go to bed late at night. The difference for them is that while they have the Government's platitudes, they do not have its money.

Amendment put and declared lost.
Question put and agreed to.
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