Engagement will resume today (Friday) at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), on pay in health service employments in the community and voluntary sector, better known as Section 39, 56, and 10 organisations, following renewed and lengthy engagement earlier this week, on Monday 3rd March. 

As talks adjourned late on Monday night, the ICTU-led group of unions, which includes Fórsa, issued a statement to say talks would reconvene at 10am this morning and confirm that some progress was made but that “several outstanding issues remain to be resolved.” 

Monday’s talks followed union efforts to recommence WRC negotiations, adjourned late last year. The current Programme for Government, published in January, contains a commitment to "to progress pay issues that affect the delivery of disability services and the long-term viability of organisations within the sector."  

The Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Norma Foley TD, has presented a plan to Cabinet on the matter. Unions continued to pursue the completion of a talks process aimed at creating pay parity between healthcare workers in the sector and their equivalents in the HSE and Section 38 employments.   

The 2023 WRC agreement provided for a process to re-establish the link to public service pay terms, as the community and voluntary sector continues with the challenge of recruiting and retaining skilled healthcare workers.  

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