'We are paid less, which is unfair': Healthcare assistants to ballot for strike action 

One senior healthcare assistant in Cork with 20 years' experience said her pay is lower than HSE staff doing the same work with only nine years' experience. File picture

Thousands of healthcare assistants and other workers in 13 bodies part-funded by the HSE to look after older people and people with disabilities are to ballot for industrial action.

This centres on a pay dispute dating back to a decision to reduce pay for these workers during the recession in 2010. While pay for their HSE counterparts has been restored, theirs has not, the unions argue.