Trade unions: 'Remove profit from home care'

“There are concerns around precarious contracts of employment. Hourly rates start from just above minimum wages rates. Staff have limited if any access to sick pay, maternity pay and pensions,” Siptu organiser Damian Ginley said of the private home care sector.

Trade unions have warned that sparse regulation and bargaining power in the for-profit home care sector is fuelling a “race to the bottom” of pay and working conditions for carers.

It is also contributing to the current home care “recruitment crisis”, they claimed.

In 2019, 18 million hours of home care services were funded by the public purse. Only 8.2 million hours were provided directly by HSE staff, with the remaining hours being filled by the not-for-profit sector, and the private sector, through a competitive tender process.

In an Oireachtas Health Committee on Wednesday, sector organiser of Siptu, Damian Ginley, highlighted the significant progress made for pay and working conditions of carers working directly for the HSE.

They now have full-time contracts, recognised travel time, superannuation and sick pay schemes, and hourly rates of between €14.52 and €18.72 per hour.

However he said that within the private sector, staff are facing “huge challenges” with regard to their working terms and conditions.

There are concerns around precarious contracts of employment. Hourly rates start from just above minimum wages rates. Staff have limited if any access to sick pay, maternity pay, and pensions.

He said workers in the for-profit sector are not covered by any collective negotiating agreements, and that there is “aggressive resistance” to trade unions and workers trying to organise.

Siptu recommended the establishment of a collective bargaining forum for staff of private home care providers, as well as a clear commitment from Government to directly provide home care support, and “remove profit from the provision of home care”.

Fórsa representatives echoed the position of Siptu about removing the for-profit model from home care, and suggested that investment was needed in clerical and admin support for the HSE’s directly employed home carers, to streamline the direct recruitment process.

Clerical support needed

Fórsa assistant general secretary Catherine Keogh said that the burden of coordinating 10 million hours of home care falls on just over 100 home support resource managers. She said there is an “urgent need” for appropriate clerical and admin support for a service of its scale, to meet the rising demand of services by an ageing population.

Also speaking at the Oireachtas Committee, Joseph Musgrave, CEO of Home & Community Care Ireland (HCCI), the representative body for the private home care sector, confirmed that the average wage for private sector carers is €12.70 per hour, with the lowest wage reported by a member being €11.93 per hour.

He said the HCCI would support a commitment to a minimum of the living wage as a condition of the next Home Care Tender process.

“This will, of course, increase the cost of providing home care but it is the right thing to do. As described in previous sessions before this Committee, the reality is that the HSE sets the conditions of the market,” he said.