Fianna Fáil TD for Laois Sean Fleming has called on the Minister for Health to address an issue regarding staff who are fully employed as Home Help workers but are not included in the official HSE staffing numbers.
He claims the HSE are showing disrespect, a lack of dignity and equality towards their own home help workers.
Deputy Fleming said, “Information which I have obtained from the Minister confirms that full time staff employed by the HSE as home helps are not categorised as employees by the HSE in their employment statistics.
“It is shocking that in the HSE National Service Plan 2018, published by the HSE yesterday, again reiterates on page 101 that home help staff are excluded from their Human Resource information statistics.
“This issue arises following on from a ruling made by the Labour Court in 1997 in which Home Help workers were given full employment status.
“At the time the HSE decided to exclude Home Help workers from general staffing numbers due to administrative procedures. However it’s astonishing that this anomaly remains to be corrected 20 years on from the Labour Court ruling.
“The Home Help workers do get their payroll entitlements but they are not officially counted as full HSE employees.
“This simply isn’t good enough and it shows complete disregard and disrespect for the valuable work carried out by their own Home Help workers. The Government needs to ensure that the HSE corrects this issue as soon as possible,” concluded Deputy Fleming.
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