Unions and voluntary organisations seek clarity on funding for agreed pay increases

Voluntary organisations and unions hope to receive clarification over the coming days on when thousands of health and social care workers will receive pay increases agreed in a recent deal that averted a strike in the sector.

Around 5,000 staff working for organisations including the Irish Wheelchair Association, DePaul Ireland and Enable Ireland had been due to take indefinite strike action as part of a long-running dispute in which a far larger group of workers were seeking the restoration of parity with people doing performing similar or the same work but for better pay because they were working directly for the State or one of its agencies.

Unusually, the charities and voluntary organisations that were the actual employers supported the demand, at least in part because the pay disparity, which was said to run at more than 10 per cent, was causing many staff to leave in order to join the HSE or other Government agencies.

The deal provided for a 3 per cent pay increase backdated to April, a further 2 per cent to take effect from the start of November and a final 3 per cent to be received from March 1st next year.

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A separate process intended to allow for the restoration of parity over the course of the public sector pay deal currently being negotiated was also established but has not progressed so far beyond a recent first meeting.

It had been hoped that the initial pay increases, including back money, would be paid to affected staff in time for Christmas but though that now seems highly unlikely in the vast majority of cases and the organisations and unions are awaiting for a schedule from the various Government departments involved with regard to when the transfer of additional funding required to pay the increases will occur.

The two sides met at the Workplace Relations Commission last week and the three unions involved, Siptu, Fórsa and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation are expecting follow up communications in the coming days.

On Monday, a broad coalition of the employers involved expressed “extreme disappointment” over the lack of clarity on when the payments would be received.

The organisations are also understood to be concerned regarding the funding of any additional costs to them, most obviously increased employers’ social insurance contribution.

The unions say they understand the funding has been secured by the various departments involved, which include Children, Housing, Health and Justice but Fórsa told its members last week it had made it clear the process of getting it to staff needed to be expedited “as a matter of urgency”.

Siptu’s Damien Ginley told The Irish Times on Tuesday there had been an expectation at the time the deal was agreed “the money would be paid quickly and we would be concerned if not enough is being done to get the process completed”.

He suggested the situation varied somewhat from department to department and so staff working in different areas – healthcare, housing, children’s and family services – might be impacted accordingly but said it was important that greater clarity on what is happening be provided.

In response to queries from The Irish Times the various departments all said the funding was being processed.

The Department of Children, which took a lead in the negotiations, said the required funding for all of the departments had been approved and “appropriate administrative arrangements are currently being developed by the HSE and Tusla to ensure this additional funding for pay is made available”.

“The Department’s aim is to ensure the increased funding is made available as efficiently as possible to the employer organisations, while also providing for appropriate accountability and controls to be put in place.

“It is however acknowledged that it may take some time for the funding increases to be allocated to eligible organisations due to the need to meet standard financial governance and accounting requirements.”

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