Negotiations to lift the threat of strike action by 4,500 carers in residential homes for the intellectually disabled will restart this morning at the Labour Relations Commission.
The stakes are high as the two unions involved, IMPACT and SIPTU, negotiate separately in parallel talks with the Health Service Employment Agency - backed by the threat of massive disruption to services if the talks fail, and immense hardship for hundreds of families.
It would mean residents having to be returned to the care of their families from residential facilities in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford, Wicklow and Athboy.
IMPACT, which represents some 1,200 in house parent grades, is due to start conciliation talks with the HSEA at 9.30 a.m., to be followed by SIPTU at 12 a.m. SIPTU represents a majority of the 4,000 care assistants involved in the dispute.
SIPTU was due to begin strike action yesterday but agreed to a deferral in the early hours, yesterday, when the management side acknowledged an "historic pay relationship" existed between care assistants and assistant house parents in residential homes - in talks brokered by the National Implementation Body, which monitors national agreements.
The nationwide dispute is linked to pay increases of up to 44 per cent awarded to childcare workers last April.
IMPACT says its members (house parents and assistant house parents) in the homes for people with intellectual disabilities, are now paid between €113 and €173 a week less at the top of the pay scales than staff who perform identical work in children's homes. The two groups shared common qualifications, pay and grading structures until early last year.Then, in response to the widely publicised crisis in children's homes, house parents were awarded increases of between £5,000 and £6,000 per annum.
While the Government authorised the residential childcare sector to introduce the agreed pay deal, said Mr Kevin Callinan, IMPACT's national secretary, they later said residential homes for people with intellectual disabilities must stick to the old arrangements. "It's a clear case of discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities and the staff who serve them."
But Mr John Delamare for the Hospital Service Employers, Agency, insisted that it was "clearly understood" at the time of the agreement that it related to child carers only. A claim on behalf of the carers in intellectually disabled homes was being processed separately, he said.
The strike, if it goes ahead, would immediately impact on the following institutions:
St John of God (all Dublin services)
St Michael's House, Dublin.
Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul (all Dublin services).
Stewart's Hospital, Dublin.
Cheeverstown, Dublin.
Brothers of Charity services (Galway).
Galway County Association for Mentally Handicapped Children.
Brothers of Charity Services in Cork, Waterford and the south-east region.
Co Wicklow Association for the Mentally Handicapped.
Daughters of Charity, Lisnagry Co Limerick.
Moyregan House autistic residential unit, Athboy.
St Raphael's Hospital, Youghal, Co Cork.
COPE Foundation, Cork.