I must now deal with a postponed division in respect of amendment No. 1 in the name of the Minister for Health to the motion regarding strike action by the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association. Today, on the question, "That the amendment be made", a division was claimed, and that division must be taken now.
Strike Action by the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]
The following motion was moved by Deputy Gino Kenny, on Wednesday, 25 May 2022:
That Dáil Éireann:
notes that:
— medical scientists carry out the same work as other scientist colleagues in hospital laboratories, but are paid on average eight per cent less, with fewer promotional opportunities and less support for training and education;
— pay parity with clinical biochemists was awarded in 2001 following the Report of the Expert Group on Medical Laboratory Technician/Technologist Grades and was agreed by the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Department of Health, however, this was lost due to an unintentional procedural effect of the 2002 benchmarking process;
— there is an ongoing and large national shortage of medical scientists across the public health service due to lesser pay and conditions, insufficient third-level places, poor career structure and limited promotional opportunities, and up to 20 per cent of medical scientist posts in hospitals are vacant;
— the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association (MLSA) warned against the Government's decision in 2006 to outsource testing to the United States, due to the different testing and screening protocols in place and the disconnect between the outsourced screening programme and the clinical services in Ireland for women subsequently diagnosed with cervical cancer, and concern was also expressed about the loss to the State of the skills to provide the service;
— medical scientists are the hidden heroes of the health service, as they are the people who process test samples for Covid-19, who do blood tests, who test urine and stool samples, and they have been under intense pressure during the Covid-19 pandemic;
— there is huge frustration and burn-out of medical scientists because of a severe recruitment and retention problem which has been ignored by the HSE and Department of Health for many years;
— last November, MLSA members voted 98 per cent in favour of taking industrial action in pursuit of their pay parity claim and recruitment for vacant posts; and
— the MLSA planned for strike action in late March/early April 2022, but deferred this action to accept an invitation to meet the Public Sector Agreement Group (PSAG), however, satisfactory progress was not achieved, and industrial action began last week and continues this week;
further notes that:
— inflation has reached seven per cent and pay increases, at least equal to the rate of inflation, are necessary to protect all workers' real incomes;
— the MLSA action follows many rounds of unsuccessful talks with the HSE, Department of Health, Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) and the PSAG;
— the HSE has told the MLSA that funding for pay parity is a decision for DPER, but DPER has not engaged meaningfully with the MLSA over its pay claim;
— the MLSA has made every effort to avoid the disruption to patients and fellow healthcare workers, but has been left with no alternative but to take this action;
— up to 14,000 outpatient appointments were cancelled on the first day of strike action, with significant impacts on Emergency Departments, the number of patients on trolleys and on general practitioner services;
— the vast majority of MLSA members have been on picket lines at all public voluntary and HSE hospitals during the last week and have received enormous public support for their action; and
— further days of strike action are planned next week on 31st May and 1st-2nd June; and
calls on the Government to:
— ensure that DPER and the HSE agree to the long-standing pay parity award recommended over two decades ago, and immediately implement the average eight per cent pay increase sought by MLSA members;
— begin a recruitment campaign to fill the estimated 20 per cent of medical scientist posts that are currently vacant; and
— publish a plan for the rapid rebuilding of testing capabilities and capacity in the public health service, and to end the outsourcing of testing to the private sector.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"notes:
— the dedication, professionalism and commitment of all medical scientists throughout the country, and that they have performed a crucial role in the Covid-19 pandemic response;
— that medical scientists are the hidden heroes of the health service, as they are the people who process test samples for Covid-19, who do blood tests, who test urine and stool samples, and they have been under intense pressure during the Covid-19 pandemic;
recognises that:
— the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association (MLSA) have a long-standing concern in relation to the pay and career structure of the medical scientist grade, and they want pay parity between medical scientists and clinical biochemists, as parity of pay with clinical biochemists was given to medical scientists via the Report of the Expert Group on Medical Laboratory Technician/Technologist Grades in 2001, however, the 2002 benchmarking process broke the link between the two grades and, consequently, eliminated the parity;
— medical scientists are an integral part of the provision of laboratory services across many disciplines, and the current medical scientist workforce stands at 2,135 Whole-time Equivalents;
— the Chief Clinical Officer in the Health Service Executive (HSE) has commissioned a review of the strategic direction of laboratory services;
— the HSE plans to undertake a national recruitment campaign for medical scientists, both nationally and internationally, and investment in development posts has been confirmed via the National Service Plan 2022 with circa 160 development posts being recruited in addition to replacement posts;
— there is a clearly defined grade structure with promotional opportunities for medical scientists within the HSE, and since 2019 there has been a six per cent growth in the number of medical scientists, while the number of basic grade medical scientists has reduced since 2019, the number of senior and specialist grade medical scientists has increased;
— the HSE is leading a project to progress advanced practice in the National Health and Social Care Professions, which encompasses developing an overarching framework incorporating all the key factors, including an agreed definition and approach across the professions, core competencies, a planned approach to meeting educational requirements, governance and regulatory considerations which can inform policy development in this area;
— a strategic decision was made, arising from recommendations of the Report by Dr Gabriel Scally in 2018 entitled 'Scoping Inquiry into the CervicalCheck Screening Programme', to develop a National Cervical Screening Laboratory (NCSL), which is due to open in the coming weeks, building capacity and resilience into the public element of the laboratory services required for the National Cervical Screening Programme in Ireland, and will enable the National Screening Service (NSS) to reduce its dependency on third party providers to meet the needs of the CervicalCheck programme;
— the new NCSL is designed to become the principal provider of cervical screening laboratory services for the NSS over time, and it will also serve as a national base for training, education and research purposes, with €20 million having been committed for construction, fitout and staffing of the NCSL, and a workforce plan is currently being developed to address the workforce resilience;
— the current public service pay agreement, Building Momentum - A New Public Service Agreement 2021-2022, includes the process of sectoral bargaining to deal with all outstanding claims across the public sector, and the bargaining fund equates to one per cent of basic pensionable pay;
— there was extensive engagement between health management and the MLSA on the use of the sectoral bargaining fund in the last number of months, however, there are insufficient funds to fully or partially resolve this matter to the satisfaction of the MLSA; and
— as this matter could not be resolved, it was referred to the Public Sector Agreement Group (PSAG), the dispute resolution mechanism set up under Building Momentum - A New Public Service Agreement 2021-2022, twice since January 2022, and at the latest meeting of this group on the 11th May, PSAG recommended that the matter be immediately referred to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and that industrial peace be maintained in the meantime, however, while the MLSA agreed to reconvene at the WRC, they were not willing to lift their strike action; and
calls on all sides to use the established dispute resolution mechanisms of the State, including the WRC and the Labour Court, and to suspend industrial action while this process is ongoing."
- (Minister for Health)
Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 72; Níl, 59; Staon, 0.
Tá
- Browne, James.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Burke, Colm.
- Butler, Mary.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Cahill, Jackie.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Cannon, Ciarán.
- Carey, Joe.
- Carroll MacNeill, Jennifer.
- Chambers, Jack.
- Collins, Niall.
- Costello, Patrick.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Crowe, Cathal.
- Devlin, Cormac.
- Dillon, Alan.
- Donnelly, Stephen.
- Donohoe, Paschal.
- Duffy, Francis Noel.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Feighan, Frankie.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Flaherty, Joe.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Foley, Norma.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Harris, Simon.
- Haughey, Seán.
- Heydon, Martin.
- Higgins, Emer.
- Kehoe, Paul.
- Lahart, John.
- Lawless, James.
- Leddin, Brian.
- Madigan, Josepha.
- Martin, Catherine.
- Matthews, Steven.
- McAuliffe, Paul.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McEntee, Helen.
- McHugh, Joe.
- Moynihan, Aindrias.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Murnane O'Connor, Jennifer.
- Naughton, Hildegarde.
- Noonan, Malcolm.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Brien, Joe.
- O'Callaghan, Jim.
- O'Connor, James.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Donovan, Patrick.
- O'Dowd, Fergus.
- O'Gorman, Roderic.
- O'Sullivan, Christopher.
- O'Sullivan, Pádraig.
- Ó Cathasaigh, Marc.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Rabbitte, Anne.
- Richmond, Neale.
- Ring, Michael.
- Ryan, Eamon.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Smyth, Niamh.
- Smyth, Ossian.
- Stanton, David.
- Troy, Robert.
- Varadkar, Leo.
Níl
- Andrews, Chris.
- Barry, Mick.
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Brady, John.
- Browne, Martin.
- Buckley, Pat.
- Carthy, Matt.
- Clarke, Sorca.
- Collins, Joan.
- Collins, Michael.
- Conway-Walsh, Rose.
- Cronin, Réada.
- Cullinane, David.
- Daly, Pa.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Farrell, Mairéad.
- Funchion, Kathleen.
- Gannon, Gary.
- Gould, Thomas.
- Guirke, Johnny.
- Healy-Rae, Danny.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Kelly, Alan.
- Kenny, Gino.
- Kenny, Martin.
- Kerrane, Claire.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- Mitchell, Denise.
- Munster, Imelda.
- Murphy, Catherine.
- Murphy, Paul.
- Murphy, Verona.
- Mythen, Johnny.
- Nash, Ged.
- Naughten, Denis.
- Nolan, Carol.
- O'Callaghan, Cian.
- O'Donoghue, Richard.
- O'Reilly, Louise.
- O'Rourke, Darren.
- Ó Broin, Eoin.
- Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
- Ó Murchú, Ruairí.
- Ó Ríordáin, Aodhán.
- Pringle, Thomas.
- Quinlivan, Maurice.
- Ryan, Patricia.
- Shanahan, Matt.
- Sherlock, Sean.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Bríd.
- Smith, Duncan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
- Tully, Pauline.
- Ward, Mark.
- Whitmore, Jennifer.
Staon
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Jack Chambers and Brendan Griffin; Níl, Deputies Richard Boyd Barrett and Gino Kenny.
Amendment declared carried.
Motion, as amended, put and declared carried.
Is féidir teacht ar Cheisteanna Scríofa ar
www.oireachtas.ie
.
Written Answers are published on the Oireachtas website.
Cuireadh an Dáil ar athló ar 8.16 p.m. go dtí 9 a.m., Déardaoin, an 26 Bealtaine 2022.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.16 p.m. until 9 a.m. on Thursday, 26 May 2022.