SIPTU is urgently calling on the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, to intervene immediately to address critical funding challenges facing voluntary home care providers in Dublin.
Members of SIPTU working in Blanchardstown & Inner-City Home Care are engaging in strike action over management’s failure to implement adequate pay increases.
Three days of strike action have already been undertaken following management’s failure to intervene and address the pay claim. The Union has now announced a further 72-hour work stoppage for next week as the dispute escalates.
“The current HSE model, supported by the Department of Health, which provides homecare services through a tendered service agreement, is creating a race to the bottom in workers’ pay,” SIPTU Organiser Damian Ginley said.
“Organisations are not being provided with sufficient funding to allow cost-of-living pay increases to be implemented for workers. It is evident at this stage that, without the intervention of the Minister, more voluntary homecare services in the Dublin Region will be left with no alternative but to engage in industrial action to have their legitimate pay claims heard.
“These are some of the lowest-paid health professionals within the health profession. They are lone workers who provide invaluable care within their local communities.”
SIPTU Health Official Michelle Waller said: “Our members care for some of the most vulnerable elderly clients who depend on the important services provided by our home care workers.
“Without our members carrying out their duties in the clients’ homes, more and more clients would need to be cared for in our already overstretched hospital settings.
“We are calling now for the direct intervention of the Minister to intervene before this action proceeds. It is no longer acceptable for the Department of Health to ignore these workers and the elderly clients who depend on this service, a service that the state has failed to resource properly, resulting in the current crisis in the greater Dublin voluntary homecare setting.”