Care crisis: 'Staff have had to bag pack for their own salaries or to pay the heating bill'

Staff of voluntary and community groups are paid much less than HSE and Tusla workers — despite delivering the same care services for the State, writes Mick Clifford

Ciara Kane, CEO of the Northside Family Resource Centre in Limerick: 'Every time I try to recruit for what we’re all agreed is an essential service, Tusla or the HSE can outstrip me with salaries.' Picture: Brian Arthur

Ciara Kane gets upset when her staff don’t photocopy on both sides of the page. It’s a small thing but she has to literally watch the pennies like a hawk. 

She is the CEO of the Northside Family Resource Centre in Limerick City. Running a major service that improves the lives of hundreds of families in the socially disadvantaged area of Ballynanty is a job in itself, but ensuring that the money never runs out takes up an inordinate amount of her time.

This article is part of the Care crisis series about the funding of voluntary and community care organisations published online here from Sunday, October 8 and in the 'Irish Examiner' from October 9

Occasionally, she has to ask some of the staff whether they would be up for bag-packing at the local supermarket in order to collect enough money to pay for the electricity. Some of her staff are qualified to masters degree level. Others have shown the kind of dedication that elevates a job into a vocation. 

There was also the time when, at the end of the financial year, she went through the figures with her financial manager, sat on the floor of her office and cried, trying to figure out how to juggle the budget, deciding on whether any service might have to be cut, any life pushed closer to a place which may be beyond hope.

Care workers in the community and voluntary sector — including those employed by 'Section 39' organisations — want pay parity with HSE and Tusla staff restored. File picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Kane is running one of the largest family resource centres in the State. 

She oversees a staff of 70, providing all manner of services for newborns right up to those heading for the finish line in the life cycle. 

In total, over 1,000 people avail of the services. Many who do so are living on the margins and the centre provides a support, sometimes a lifeline, to keep lives and families intact. The staff are highly qualified and dedicated to the work yet they find themselves often being diverted into fundraising.

“From our perspective we are chronically underfunded,” Kane says. “We are contracted to provide social services on behalf of the State but I have seen instances where staff have had to bag-pack for their own salaries or to pay the electricity bill. 

A huge part of my job is to find money and I have highly-qualified and experienced staff spending time generating income.

The network of family resource centres (FRCs) doesn’t fill gaps as much as provide the basics to ensure that sections of society can function on a daily basis. For many of the 30,000 people who avail of their services, it’s the difference between living and existing.

Tusla, the main funder for FRCs, is perfectly aware of the value of the work that is being done. Two weeks ago, Kane, along with 120 other managers in the network, received a letter from Tusla pointing out that the agency deems that the services they provide “to children, young people and their families as essential services”.

This wasn’t the agency just letting everybody know how valued they are — it was a warning. The FRC network, along with a host of other agencies in the community and voluntary sector, has announced that they will strike on October 17 to protest at the lower salaries they are expected to work with compared to those doing equivalent jobs in State agencies.

Tusla’s response to the family resource centres was not to assure, but to warn them that they have obligations.

“While we can empathise and appreciate the sometimes difficult experiences of staff along with their right to strike, Tusla nevertheless expects that services provided under the SLA [service level agreement] will be maintained. We would need reassurances that no child or young person will be harmed or experience hardships throughout or as a result of any strike action.”

Some among the FRC managers didn’t know whether to laugh or lash out.

Tusla pays its own personnel according to national agreements. Yet it was warning the underfunded sector where equivalent staff work for less as a matter of routine, that they need to put the children first.

Northside Family Resource Centre CEO Ciara Kane: 'We are contracted to provide social services on behalf of the State but I have seen instances where staff have had to bag-pack for their own salaries or to pay the electricity bill.' Picture: Brian Arthur

“I’m spending thousands on recruiting,” Kane says. “Every time I try to recruit for what we’re all agreed is an essential service, Tusla or the HSE can outstrip me with salaries. So I’m hoping that a certain person may be looking for a different work/life balance or an innovative place to work and they might come our way. But that’s a fluke because most people need to pay the mortgage and particularly now in a cost-of-living crisis.”

Chris O’Leary, the co-ordinator of the Cobh Family Resource Centre in Cork knows all about the problem with recruiting and retaining.

“A year ago we lost three core staff, all went one after the other,” he says. 

“It was a combination of the stress, the aftermath of covid, and especially being enticed to better paid jobs.”

As with most FRCs, his staff include family support and community workers, counsellors, play and art therapists, admin staff, and a whole range of personnel who contribute to easing the difficult circumstances facing adults and children.

“We have a huge amount of work going on but the outcomes are fantastic,” he says. “For instance, children come in for an assessment. We do that and then the therapist can begin work with them. You can see improvements happening.” 

There is, however, no getting away from the big issue. 

“Retaining staff is just so difficult,” he says. “With the cost of living today some wouldn’t survive on it. You put in a lot more hours than you get paid for. Anybody working in an FRC doesn’t do it solely for the money. We do it because we believe that what we do can pay off for the people we work with.”

A demonstration last year by Fórsa members working for Enable Ireland outside the Lavanagh Centre in Cork. The 'Section 39' workers want restoration of their pay rates, like their colleagues in the HSE and Tusla. Picture: Denis Minihane

The lagging pay scales in the community and voluntary sector, along with a corresponding difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff, is what has led to the unprecedented strike action announced last month.

Eighteen agencies, backed by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, are taking the action after the breakdown of talks at the Workplace Relations Commission.

Pay cuts reversed — for some 

The gap in pay opened up following the economic collapse in 2008. Legislation to reduce salaries and wages in State bodies was introduced. Those in the community and voluntary sector were told their pay would be hit by an equivalent amount. Eventually, pay was restored for workers in places like the HSE and Tusla, but those on the outside were not lifted on the rising tide. A gap opened up and with it a recruitment crisis.

Fórsa’s head of health and welfare Ashley Connolly: 'There’s a yawning pay gap of more than 10%. Services cannot be sustained as long as that continues.' File picture

Fórsa health and welfare official Ashley Connolly said on the announcement of the strike that the workers in question had been left with no option.

“Their colleagues are walking out the door for better terms elsewhere, and waiting lists for the services these agencies offer continue to grow as a result,” she said.

“There’s a yawning pay gap of more than 10%. Services cannot be sustained as long as that continues.”

The pay difference is bad enough but, for some agencies in the voluntary and community sector, there is an even bigger issue. The bodies which are funded primarily by Tusla, as opposed to the HSE, do not receive funding specifically for salaries. Instead, they are governed by the Child and Family Act which provides for funding a service, rather than linking the funding to employment terms and conditions.

Managers have to chase funding

The result is that agencies such as the family resource centres are forced to employ staff on lesser terms and conditions in order to ensure that they can continue providing the range of services for those most in need of support from the State.

Mangers of the centres are constantly having to chase funding from wherever they can in order to maintain the level of service.

Fergal Landy, the CEO of the Family Resource Centre National Forum, says things have changed from the days when all agencies in the sector were under the HSE and the salaries of all sections of the community and voluntary sector were linked to the public service. Today the “Section 39” agencies funded primarily by the HSE are lagging in pay scales — but those primarily funded by Tusla don’t even have scales.

“With Tusla, it’s a service-level agreement out of which staff and services must be funded whatever way you can,” Landy says.

“Tusla will say it’s just buying a service from you and this is the type of service they want and how you pay is up to you. They don’t want to be an employer of any kind, they don’t want to be on the hook for paying salaries.

What happens is that we are losing staff constantly. If, for instance, a social worker could come and get the same pay at one of our centres, some definitely would. But that’s not possible.

"I know the level of funding within government isn’t down to Tusla, but what is happening is they are providing very limited funding on which they know we can’t offer proper salaries.”

Thus the scrambling for money wherever it can be found for what the State openly acknowledges is a service that is essential to keeping together the more fragile elements of society.

In Cobh, Chris O’Leary asks how the State would fare without the FRC network.

“Funding is in the gift of the government,” he says.

“If you didn’t have the FRCs tomorrow, the State would be paying out a lot more for the services and supports we are providing.”

Family Resource Centre National Forum CEO Fergal Landy highlights that Section 39 agencies funded primarily by the HSE are lagging in pay scales — but those primarily funded by Tusla don’t even have scales. File picture: Brian Farrell 

Now a strike looms on October 17. Services will inevitably be affected, although the nature of the work ensures that all will do what they can to minimise any disruption.

Management in step with staff

Unlike your average strike, it is not the management or employers who are targeted here. Management are in step with staff: The employers are, for the greater part, voluntary boards made up of people from the community. What is really at issue is the governing ethic which dictates that costs can be saved by taking advantage of a vocational element in a service irrespective of the harm and blatant unfairness at play.

Ciara Kane is a passionate defender of the community and voluntary sector, notwithstanding the disadvantages in being outside the state’s tent. The sector ensures that the service and support they provide is of the community rather than imposed on it.

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“The community and voluntary sector is very necessary,” she says. “The State [agencies] are like the rocks in society, there to give a solid base where you know what to expect.

“What should happen is there should be narrow gaps between the rocks and the flowers that spring up [community and voluntary organisations such as the FRCs] between to meet the extra needs of community. But the rocks have gotten smaller and the mud has got bigger and we are drowning in the mud because we can’t fill the gaps.

“We are now becoming basic service providers of what the State is not doing, whereas we should be here to support the community.”