At the beginning of last month, and indeed, before then, I raised the plight of section 39 bodies in the health area, specifically hospices. They are being treated in a particularly shabby, cynical and dishonest manner in relation to pay restoration and funding for that by the Minister for Health and the Government generally. This relates to the Lansdowne Road agreement and new public sector pay agreements.

The hospice movement is one of the most cherished areas of care in our health service, uniquely enjoying almost universal approval from the public for the remarkable care, empathy and space that it gives to families and their loved ones at the end of their lives. It also provides a range of services, including community-based care, respite and advice. The clearest manifestation of this has been the public endorsement of hospices through extraordinary fundraising over the years, for both capital and current funding. Hospices would not be able to keep their doors open were it not for the public support for fundraising that goes on constantly. Therefore, I am surprised by the degree to which the Department of Health, the Minister and the Taoiseach have been stonewalling on a simple and key issue of pay restoration similar to that enjoyed by public servants in the HSE arising from the new public service pay agreement, Lansdowne Road and the unwinding of the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, pay cuts.

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, have told me in replies to parliamentary questions that FEMPI did not apply to section 39 bodies, but it did. There is a trail of documents. I met representatives of five hospices who produced the documentation to this effect from Barry O'Brien, the national director of human resources, in November 2013. He was very clear, writing of the consistent application and implementation of the provisions of the Haddington Road agreement and appointing an assurance team to work with all HSE and HSE-funded agencies to bring this about. There is also a letter to the then CEO of Galway hospice on 7 October 2013 which refers to the implementation of payroll and related cost reductions in line with other publicly funded bodies. The Labour Court made an adjudication against Milford Care Centre at the time, telling it that it must implement the cuts because that linkage with the HSE pay scales was there and was acknowledged.

It is time to end the Jesuitical playacting around this issue and the splitting of hairs that characterises the Government's response to date. The record should be corrected because the pay cuts were applied to hospices. The funding should be restored to hospices and the link to the HSE pay scales should be restored forthwith. I want the Taoiseach to confirm today that he will do that.

I share the Deputy's very strong support for the hospice movement. In my constituency, I have helped to secure funding for the St. Francis hospice in Blanchardstown, ensuring that it was opened and staffed when I became Minister for Health and building on the work of my constituency predecessor, Brian Lenihan, who ensured that public land was provided on which to build it. It was paid for primarily through funds raised in the community. As Minister for Health I also gave commitments to the new hospice being built for Wicklow and the recently opened hospice in County Mayo. Everyone in the House is very supportive of the hospice movement which provides people with the possibility to spend their last days with dignity and care, whether in the hospices or receiving hospice care in their own homes.

The specific issue raised by the Deputy was discussed at Cabinet yesterday. I have asked the Ministers, Deputies Paschal Donohoe and Simon Harris, to examine the matter and come up with a solution or at least a clear answer in the coming weeks. The Deputy will know that the difference between section 38 and section 39 bodies is not Jesuitical. It is there in law in the Health Act, which I believe Deputy Martin himself brought through the House. People who work for section 38 bodies are public servants and are paid for by the State while those who work for section 39 bodies are generally employees of charities or foundations or occasionally of businesses. The way that the Government funds those section 39 bodies, which include most of our hospices, is through a block grant over which the hospices have significant autonomy, and they decide what they do with those funds. Some of it will go towards paying staff while other parts of it will go towards equipment, possibly building costs, debt reduction or other costs.

Over the coming weeks, we will have to assess whether the increase of the block grants, which many of these bodies have been awarded, was there to cover pay restoration in part. We have to protect taxpayers and it should be borne in mind that the people who use hospice services and donate towards them are also taxpayers. We cannot have a situation where we give a section 39 body the same money twice. If the increase in the block grant that they received in recent years was sufficient to cover pay restoration, that is a separate issue than if it is not, and this is the question that will be examined.

There is no point in the Taoiseach saying that we all support hospices and then he screws them. That is what he has been doing on this issue for the past six months. It is utterly dishonest. The replies from the Minister and from the Taoiseach are dishonest. The hospices' non-pay costs have increased significantly. We all have correspondence from the hospices on the matter.

It is very simple. The pay linkage should be restored. The Taoiseach can refer to the legislation but we all know the difference between section 39 bodies and the HSE. The bottom line is that the HSE made it very clear that they would use the service level agreement to ensure that the section 39 bodies honoured the pay cuts, or in other words, if they did not, the HSE would cut their funding and do so to the equivalent level that it would identify. This is terrible blackguarding that is going on here. It is time to get rid of all the verbiage and the nonsense. The hospices raise most of the capital funding and 25% to 30% of their current funding themselves, and the public contributes to that. We carry on with this play acting here, pretending that there is some sort of wall between these bodies and the public pay scales. There has always been a link. They, along with the other section 39 bodies, have been excluded from the implementation of the new agreements, wrongly in my view, and in a very dishonest way.

It should be rectified as a matter of urgency because these staff will not be able to afford to continue over the next three years due to the breaking of the link between pay scales in respect of pay restoration by the Taoiseach's Government and the HSE.

First, I reject that allegation and the language which Deputy Martin has just used in this House. I think using that sort of language in the Chamber is unbecoming of the Deputy's office as Leader of the Opposition.

To which language is the Taoiseach referring?

The unparliamentary language which the Deputy used. It is unbecoming of his office to use-----

Will the Taoiseach define which word he finds unparliamentary?

No, I will not repeat the Deputy's language.

That is being ridiculous.

The Ceann Comhairle may wish to examine whether or not that is one of the words which is prohibited and considered to be unparliamentary.

It would be more in the Taoiseach's line to deal with the substantive issue.

The Deputy should calm himself down.

Deputy McGrath should stick to North Korea.

Whether it is unparliamentary language or not-----

Will the Taoiseach speak to the issue?

-----it is certainly beneath the dignity of this House, of the Deputy's office and of his party to use that sort of language in this House.

What about the dignity of the people involved?

Leaving aside the particular utterance, I reject the substance of the allegation. Let us not forget the history of recent years. Under this Government of Fine Gael, the Independent Alliance and Independent Members, we have increased spending for health two years in a row. In the five previous years we held health spending at the same level or increased it slightly. There were three years of cuts to health spending. Each of those three years occurred when Fianna Fáil was in office and when the Deputy was a member of Cabinet. He is the person who cut the health budget three years in a row. We stabilised it and have now increased it again. I absolutely reject both the content and the tone of the Deputy's language.

Will the Taoiseach restore the link?

In terms of the substance of the Deputy's question-----

Deputy McGrath should realise this is no smiling matter.

-----I agree that there is a long-standing pay linkage between public servants and hospice staff. That pay linkage should be honoured. The question which needs to be answered in the next week or two is whether those section 39 bodies already received the money to do so in their block grant.

They did not. The Taoiseach knows they did not get the money.

We have to protect the taxpayer here. We are not going to pay section 39 bodies twice for the same thing.

The Taoiseach needs to protect the service as well.

I have asked the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Harris, to examine this and to come back to me with an answer in the next two weeks. We will certainly have this matter resolved by the time the HSE service plan for 2018 is produced.