Sir, – Care workers and personal assistants (PAs) work in the community with individuals with disability, older people or children. This is an industry that is going through significant changes at the moment, not least because of the entry of for-profit service providers.
The care workers and PAs are now being recruited at or close to minimum wage. But not only are they on low pay, their hours of work are often very short, even as little as half an hour, before they have to move to another person to work another half an hour. They typically get no travel allowance for having to move between their different clients.
In addition, a day’s work for a PA or carer can start at 7am for a couple of hours, then perhaps one or two hours at lunchtime and finally a couple of hours in the late evening, perhaps up to midnight. So a day’s work for these employees may be spread across an 18-hour period. They will also have travelled many kilometres, particularly in rural areas, throughout their working day, at their own cost.
These employees have little or no connection with their fellow employees and are vulnerable lone workers.
As one can anticipate, with these poor conditions and pay, there is a high turnover and a low sense of morale within this sector. This may reflect in very poor quality of service to the disabled person, older person or child.
In addition, if a PA or carer is employed for only one hour in a day, they lose a full day’s jobseeker allowance for that day.
So, not only is the carer or PA receiving very low pay, it is actually costing them more money to work, than not to work. Their situation could be helped significantly if the Department of Social Protection changed its rules to be based on hours, rather than days.
I suggest that if employees are working shorter hours, say less than four in a block, then the rate of pay must be significantly higher to compensate for the reduced number of hours. This could indeed be set down in regulations. Setting a minimum wage for shorter-hour workers at €13 to €15 an hour would seem reasonable, given the unsociable hours and conditions that they have to work under.
If we expect carers and PAs to work to a very high standard with vulnerable people, then the very least they should expect is to receive an appropriate rate of pay.
I’m pretty sure there are other sectors where employees work very short hours and are equally marginalised financially to the point of poverty. So let’s not explore just a simple question of a minimum hourly rate. Let’s nuance it to take account of the expanding trend for short working hours and zero-hour contracts. – Yours, etc,
EUGENE CALLAN,
Churchtown,
Dublin 14.