Simon Harris has said he hopes to meet the disability worker, Charlotte Fallon, when he visits St Joseph’s Foundation where she works in Cork over the coming weeks.
RTÉ footage of an exchange between the pair while he was canvassing at a supermarket in Kanturk went viral on Friday evening.
During the encounter, Ms Fallon said disability workers and others in the voluntary health services had been “ignored” by the current Government. Mr Harris denied this but as Ms Fallon stood her ground, with obvious emotion, he walked away before returning and attempting to re-engage.
The encounter, the circulation of the footage on social media and subsequent reporting of it was described on Sunday by Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman as a “defining moment” of the campaign.
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Speaking in Knock on Sunday, Mr Harris said his handling of the situation as been “completely wrong” but suggested that the issue would not unduly overshadow the campaign.
He said he spoke with Ms Fallon over the phone on Saturday and apologised to her.
“I’m really grateful for the conversation. I learned a lot from it, and I’ve also said that I’d love to call in to where she works in Cork in the coming weeks. She said I’d be very welcome. So I really do appreciate that.”
Ms Fallon, meanwhile, told The Irish Times: “He said he was very sorry and that he had a long day. He said it was a subject he was passionate on, and I said so am I. He said I deserved to have my say. I’m glad I got the apology.
“He was horrible last night,” she continued, however.
“I am not going to deny that. He was totally wrong. It wasn’t very nice. I was shaken, I was upset. I hope nobody else has to have an interaction like that ever, because it’s not very nice going home crying. I wish I had said more.”
She said there was no discussion of any meeting other than the proposed visit by Mr Harris to St Joseph’s and no specific date had been discussed.
Ms Fallon said on Sunday she had not intended for the debate around disability services and workers in voluntary organisations which provide services in the care sector (or Section 39 workers) to become focused on her, adding that many other workers in the sector had been in contact with her to share their stories.
The encounter has highlighted the ongoing situation with not just Section 39 but also Section 56 and Section 10 workers who work for voluntary organisations providing essential health and social services on behalf of the government under contracts with various departments and State agencies.
The reason they are so named is because they refer to the legislative clauses under which such organisations provide services to various government departments and agencies in the areas of health and disabilities, homelessness, and families and children.
There is frustration in the sector over the slow progress made on the improvements to pay and conditions that were expected in the wake of a deal struck more than a year ago to avert a strike.
The last round of talks at the Workplace Relations Commission scheduled for last Monday were called off by funding departments involved but talks with unions are planned away from the WRC for Tuesday morning.
John O’Sullivan, chief executive of Enable Ireland, one of the largest employers in the sector, said organisations like his were grateful the government funded an 8 per cent pay increase for many staff after the deal but that the subsequent public sector pay deal meant the gap was opening up again.
We need to unlock this and move it forward,” he said.
“We have vacancy rates of 30 per cent on some of our teams and having been optimistic about a longer-term resolution in the wake of the October 2023 deal, we are now seeing a lot of what was achieved then being washed away.”
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