2026-01-29

Today I raise the question of the sustainability of section 39 organisations. The Tánaiste will be aware that these organisations in all of our communities, and there are hundreds of them around the country, are vital for health and social care services particularly in the area of disability, hospice care, and care for our elderly. They engage in service level agreements with HSE. They are very heavily reliant on volunteers. All of those volunteers are a wonderful part of all of our communities. I have to acknowledge there is a very extensive investment by the Government in disability services, which is critical, and a lot of pay and conditions issues are being addressed. However, when the next round of public sector pay talks take place, those section 39 workers should be considered as part of that. Certainly it should always be the case that somebody who does the job in a section 39 organisation as a nurse, for example, is treated in the same way as somebody who works as a nurse directly employed by the HSE. There is a requirement, obviously, on those section 39 organisations to meet the required standards that are set out by HIQA and the HSE, and to adhere to all the Charity Regulator's standards. That is right and organisations expect to do that. It does, however, place a huge workload on those organisations and there are costs involved in that. The challenge is that we ensure we have sustainability for those section 39 organisations, so they can deliver the best services in all of our communities to the service users. I know the Tánaiste knows many of the organisations in my constituency. I think of Saint Aidan's Services in Gorey, with which I have a deep personal and family connection. It is providing services to over 300 people and their families. Cheshire Home in Shillelagh was the first Cheshire Home in Ireland. There is also the Irish Wheelchair Association in Ballycanew and Carnew Community Care, an organisation the Tánaiste is familiar with. I was also in with the service users in RehabCare in Arklow last Monday. I had a useful conversation with them. One of them told me that the Tánaiste was a very good TD, but that his brother, Adam, would be far better because he speaks out about autism services. Engaging with those service users shows how important those services are in our communities. However, when it comes to the cost of operating section 39 facilities, it should not have to be all about having to fundraise for core services. Can we provide some sort of guarantee for the sustainability of those services across the country?

That person has very good judgment, and I agree with them about my brother. I thank the Deputy for this raising this important issue. As he said, I also know well many of these organisations in the counties we represent, Wicklow and Wexford. I join the Deputy and everybody in this House in thanking them for the work they do. I remember visiting Saint Aidan's Services, Cheshire Home, Enable Ireland and many of these projects and services across the country. We value their work. We must have, as I hope and think we do, a collaborative and mutually respectful relationship. So much of our service provision is provided by these organisations. We value and respect that, and we want to work with them. That is why my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, who has responsibility for disability services, met with the National Disability Services Association this morning. I know of her direct engagement with four section 39 organisations, including some the Deputy mentioned, namely, Cheshire Home, Enable Ireland, Vision Ireland and Acquired Brain Injury Ireland as well. There was a conversation with them on many of the issues relating to sustainability and how they continue to deliver vital disability services across the country. They are playing a constructive role. They are fully part of and embedded in the national disability strategy and the direction in which we are taking that. The Government, right up to the Taoiseach, takes this issue seriously. We have a Cabinet committee on disability and we now have an implementation structure to drive forward the national disability strategy. I will be clear, as the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and the Minister, Deputy Foley, were, that we need to continue investing in and supporting organisations like section 39 bodies. We need to do that in the short and medium term as issues arise and we work our way through that. We also need to do it in the longer term. As Deputy Byrne knows and acknowledged in his contribution, we have seen a significant increase in disability funding this year. There is legitimate commentary, as there always is, after a budget about different decisions we took or did not take. One of the better decisions we made as a collective this year was to significantly increase our funding for disability services. From memory, I think there was an increase of approximately 20%, or €618 million, in funding this year. A significant portion of that will work its way, for want of a better phrase, into many of the disability organisations referenced. The Deputy also referenced the issue of pay, which is valid. The Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, pay funding agreement, reached last year between Departments and unions, includes funding for a 9.25% pay increase for workers in community and voluntary health and social care organisations. It recognises that staff in these organisations need to be fairly paid for the vital work they do. This was a landmark step. The Minister, Deputy Foley, in particular, did a lot of work on it, and I acknowledge that. The agreement also includes an automatic link to future public sector pay agreements for these workers to match the terms of all future pay adjustments. In many ways, we were rightly trying to deal with legacy issues in that deal. We now have that link with future public sector agreements, which I hope will be of great assistance in the time ahead.

I thank the Tánaiste for his answer. The WRC decision and the commitment that section 39 workers will be part of future public sector pay discussions are critical. There is a challenge for a lot of the section 39 organisations in meeting standards. I will give the example of cyber resilience. We know the impact of the cyber-attack on the HSE, and the hundreds of millions it is costing to ensure the HSE is cyber resilient. However, we expect the same level of cyber resilience of section 39 organisations, which carry a lot of health data. Yet, they are expected in many ways to pay those costs themselves. One of the problems is that meeting the standards set down, the regulations and so on, as they rightly have to do, takes up a huge amount of time. The costs there are not experienced by organisations that are part of the HSE. I want to see that commitment to long-term sustainability and multi-annual funding to ensure those organisations can continue to plan and best serve the service users in all our communities.

That is fair. The Government wants to have constructive conversations about how we meet the shared challenges. All of this is about the service user, the person with the disability and making sure that, regardless of whether you attend a section 38 or section 39 service or a fully funded HSE service, it should not make a difference to you as a service user. Therefore, we have to work out sometimes innovative ways to make sure there is that consistency in approach, while recognising there are different structures in these organisations. Of course, this is not news to anybody. We will continue to want to have a shared discussion about reform and making sure we are all delivering as much service as we can to the front line. I know that is a shared objective across the sector. I do not doubt that. Obviously, the linkage between public funding and ensuring we have some degree of public oversight of the directive of travel is important. I say that from a position of being pretty sure there is good collaboration, good relations and good structure. The meeting the Minister of State had this morning with the National Disability Services Association is an important and constructive example of that, and we will continue to have that engagement.