Taoiseach ‘dishonest’ on pay disparity

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was accused of making unacceptable and dishonest comments in the Dáil yesterday on the continung pay dispute involving staff in voluntary hospitals.

During leaders’ questions, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin challenged the Taoiseach on the demands by staff in section 39 hospitals to be included in the Government’s pay restoration programme for public servants.

The staff in the hospitals and agencies, which are either partly funded or mostly funded by the State, were hit with pay cuts during the crash in line with their public service colleagues, but according to Mr Varadkar they are not in line for pay restoration.

This is because they are not deemed to be state employees, but rather employees of third parties.

“Employees who were used to a linkage with HSE pay scales are now treated as second-class citizens while, by the Government’s own admission, they provide 25% of disability services. Employees in our hospices, the most cherished and universally lauded of our services, are treated like second-class citizens,” Mr Martin said.

“When will the Government do the honest thing and accept that these employees are entitled to linkages with HSE employees and pay the organisations accordingly?” he demanded to know.

In response, Mr Varadkar accepted a differential in pay has now opened up between staff working for HSE bodies and staff working for these section 39 bodies.

“That is causing an issue for recruitment in some places. Section 39 bodies are NGOs, charities and companies. They are not part of the public service and therefore the people who work for them are not government employees or public servants, nor have they ever been,” he said.

The Taoiseach said the Government wants to establish a process whereby it can look at each of the organisations and their staff individually.

But that drew a sharp response from Mr Martin: “That is a cop-out. It is unacceptable and dishonest.”

He said: “The HSE has been auditing these organisations year in, year out. There was correspondence from the Labour Court hearing from 14 December 2009 and January 2010 instructing these organisations, at the time of the pay cuts, to align their pay scales with the HSE pay scales. The net effect of that, said the Labour Court, was to apply pay cuts. Let us have honesty here.”

Mr Varadkar accepted the situation is certainly not fair to the workers in these organisations who are caught in the middle, between their employers, the section 39 organisations, and the HSE.

He also became engaged in sharp exchanges with Sinn Féin’s Johnny Brady who was seeking to highlight what he called the inequality between rich and poor since the crash. Mr Brady referred to a number of economic reports which he said proves the inequality.

This drew a sharp response from the Taoiseach: “I have not read the report but I will do so. When I can get around to it, I will take a look at all the Sinn Féin policy papers. What passes as a policy paper for Sinn Féin is called a press release in my party. All Sinn Féin does is take a press release, put a glossy cover on it and call it a policy paper.”