My question concerns Enable Ireland occupational therapist posts and the capacity to fill them and ensure people will be adequately paid. Enable Ireland is a section 39 body in respect of which there is major pressure and inequality regarding pay. What efforts can be made to support the organisation?

My Department acknowledges the important role Enable Ireland and other section 39 organisations and, in particular, their workers play in our health and social care services. This work is essential in providing services to many families and vulnerable people in society. Voluntary service provider agencies provide the majority of services in partnership with and on behalf of the Health Service Executive. The HSE provides funding to more than 419 organisations through more than 1,045 service arrangements throughout the country.

Enable Ireland staff are aligned to the HSE consolidated pay scales as at 1 September 2008, as per the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, agreement and subsequent pay restoration programme completed in 2021. A copy of the scales and structure for the disciplines requested, namely, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists, has been provided by the HSE and will be available to the Deputy if required.

The HSE has established a formal and robust governance framework to cover funding relationships with all non-statutory agencies that are contracted to provide services on behalf of the HSE. This includes voluntary organisations funded under sections 38 and 39 of the Health Act. The HSE currently has 18 service arrangements with Enable Ireland, covering most of the nine HSE community healthcare organisation, CHO, areas.

In 2021, Enable Ireland received funding of more than €47 million. In 2022, Enable Ireland received funding of more than €53 million from the HSE under the section 39 arrangement.

Notwithstanding that section 39 employers do not have an employment relationship with the HSE or the Department, a process of engagement to examine the pay claim of workers in community and voluntary organisations was committed to by the Government. There have been three meetings at the WRC so far. I am fully committed to addressing matters through the current WRC process and I want to see matters effectively and quickly resolved in the interests of service users, staff and providers.

Enable Ireland provides services to 13,000 children and adults in 40 locations across the country. As the Minister said, Enable Ireland is part funded by the HSE and it must raise an additional €2 million from its own services to deliver vital services to clients. Last year, 70 people in Cork were out on strike demanding pay at the same rate as those in the other sectors doing the same work. For example, an occupational therapist starting off on the current scale of €39,900 to €53,000 with Enable Ireland contrasts with the private sector where the same position would be advertised for €46,000, on average. Clearly, there is that gap where people are delivering the same service to many clients. That makes it more difficult to recruit and retain staff. That issue needs to be addressed.

The Deputy has rightly summarised the significance of Enable Ireland. They are present in nearly every CHO area. They lead 20 of our community disability network teams in doing such important work with children. They are an example of the real importance the community and voluntary sector has in terms of the work that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and I are doing on disability with section 39 organisations and also with the work Tusla does in meeting the needs of children with section 56 organisations. This is why it is really important that this WRC process has commenced and that there is engagement taking place at the moment. I want that engagement to come to a fruitful conclusion that can make provision for these organisations in a way that will allow for greater investment within them. I cannot give a blow-by-blow account. We are in a process right now and I am sure the Deputy understands that but I want to see a resolution here.

I understand the process is under way and that the Minister cannot interfere or give a blow-by-blow account on it but I really want to highlight the pressure on the service users and on the staff due to that widening pay gap between the section 38 and section 39 organisations. It is more difficult to recruit and retain staff. This has a direct knock-on effect to the services being delivered to clients. Many families feel they are getting little or no service. In reality, they are getting none in so many different ways. That gap needs to be filled in order that services and a speedy and satisfactory resolution, with equality across the section 38 and section 39 organisations, will be delivered and users can expect to get the services they require.

The issue of staff retention is so important, especially as there are significant numbers of vacancies on some of our community disability network teams and in other areas in the section 56 organisations. Pay differentials have a role in this regard. This is why it is important we act within the powers we have, again recognising that neither we as the Government nor the HSE are the direct employers of these staff. Nevertheless, we must take the steps that we can do. This gap has existed for more than a decade and this is why the Government has identified that we need the process. The Government has agreed to take part in that process. It is ongoing at the moment and there have been a number of productive engagements. It is an issue that I have discussed in my Department and work is taking place between my Department and the Department of Health. As I have said, I look forward to, and hope that we can get, a process that is agreed between the agencies, the Departments and the trade unions, that can deliver for staff but primarily for the users of these services.