I get a sense that the Government does not fully appreciate the terrible impact that tomorrow's strike by healthcare assistants, laboratory and theatre operatives and chefs will have on our health services. These workers are the cogs and wheels of our health service. It cannot operate without them. Patients will be discommoded. Elective admissions will be cancelled. Necessary X-rays, scans and other procedures will not happen for many patients if the strike goes ahead. I raised this issue with the Taoiseach yesterday and he said the Government wanted to ensure that these workers are paid adequately and are fulfilled in their roles. The Taoiseach attacked me and my party and tried to lecture us for daring to even raise the issue yesterday and for saying something similar to what he said. He also criticised my party for raising the issue of low pay within the Defence Forces and for tabling a motion last week to highlight the terrible conditions that many in our Defence Forces have to endure. The Taoiseach has a tendency to be dismissive when it comes to low-paid workers and their situation.

When we on this side of the House raised the issue of the more than €1 billion of additional expenditure on the national children’s hospital or the €2.5 billion additional expenditure on the national broadband plan the Taoiseach dismissed our concerns. He also dismissed the concerns of the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform who warned him that this broadband project did not represent value for money. He had no problem then with the massive overspends and the runaway nature of the spending on both those projects. He dismissed anybody who raised any concerns about them, yet when it comes to low-paid workers in our health services and Defence Forces the Taoiseach gets on his high horse, adopts a dismissive tone and attacks the Opposition for daring to even raise the issues. The health service workers have abided by the public service stability agreement. Their unions have adhered to it. The process has been ongoing since 2015. The Government, however, has put preconditions on a referral to the Labour Court and that has remained the stumbling block to this issue. The HSE has agreed to pay but the Government stopped that. It wants to try to fix the outcome in advance of the hearing. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform confirmed in the talks that it would consider paying the money owed to the workers in 2021. Is it not the case that the real agenda on the Government side is to kick this out to 2021 and not to deal with it now as per the public service stability agreement? That is at the core of this. The Government has not played with a straight bat on this issue.

I have no difficulty with the Deputy raising questions. This is a parliament, a democracy and the place where the Leader of the Opposition asks questions and it is where I answer them. I am very happy to answer his questions but I think he needs to be a bit less querulous, less sensitive and much less precious. It is entirely reasonable for me to point out the hypocrisy of the position of the Deputy's party. Just before this, during priority questions, the Minister for Finance was criticised by Fianna Fáil for increasing spending during the year and using corporation profit tax receipts to do it. Then Deputy Martin comes in here and demands more spending just as he did yesterday and the week before. It is entirely reasonable for me to point out to the Irish people and to everyone the hypocrisy and two-facedness of the positions the Deputy takes.

That sounds like an election.

The Government made these promises.

When it comes to concern about low-paid workers I would like to once again point out the hypocrisy and two-faced nature of Fianna Fáil's position. It is the party that cut the minimum wage.

That is a nice thing to say.

We brought in the minimum wage.

Fianna Fáil cut the minimum wage.

We have increased it four times. Fianna Fáil is the party that brought in the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, and slashed the pay of low-paid workers.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds.

It is entirely reasonable for me to point out the hypocrisy and two-facedness of the kind of positions that the Deputy and his party take.

Getting back to the substantive issue of the threatened strike tomorrow, which it is important to talk about, as I said yesterday, the Government does not want this strike to happen. We are willing to work with the unions through the industrial relations mechanisms - the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and Labour Court - to come to a resolution so that the strike can be avoided. All strikes are sorted out sooner or later. This one will be sorted out sooner or later. I would rather that it is sorted out sooner, thus avoiding strike action tomorrow and I have suggested that the Labour Court could be the mechanism by which this dispute could be resolved. I hope that can be possible during the day.

I remind the Taoiseach that Fianna Fáil has facilitated the public service pay agreements under the confidence and supply agreement. It also facilitated the last three budgets and in the context of Brexit has fulfilled its parliamentary duties in a constructive and responsible manner.

Fianna Fáil cut the minimum wage.

Those are the facts. When it comes to the health service workers, the Taoiseach talks about the other side but he is the other side because it was the Government which confirmed that it would try to pay this out in 2021. This has been going on since 2015. We are not responsible for how the Government deals with the wider issues and the mismanagement of big projects such as broadband and the children's hospital. When it comes to something already agreed as far back as 2015 the Government is saying "No" to the workers, for example, the chefs whose additional pay would cost approximately €2 million, and that it wants them to go to the Labour Court but before they do that, it wants to fix the outcome by imposing preconditions on how the dispute gets referred to the Labour Court. That is exactly what is happening because the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform confirmed that the money would be considered for payment in 2021, possibly in a successor agreement. The review that took place in 2017 recommended that chefs be linked to craft workers’ pay scales. The HSE asked for that to be done and agreed to it but the Government decided they should not get it. That was approximately €2.9 million for the 2019 estimate. Let us stop the pretence here. It is the Government that is saying it will not pay this, notwithstanding the agreement, and that it wants to kick it out to 2021. Is that not the official Government position?

The Deputy made a very serious allegation. Perhaps he did not realise that. He did not make it against me, the Government or the HSE but against the Labour Court. He suggested that somehow it was possible for the Government to fix an outcome of the Labour Court or in some way seek to fix an outcome of the Labour Court. The Deputy knows better than that. The Labour Court is an independent body, staffed by very professional people-----

It depends what it gets asked.

-----and they act independently and judiciously. To suggest that they would ever co-operate or somehow be involved in fixing an outcome is wrong and the Deputy should withdraw it.

The Deputy can ask to correct the record.

The Taoiseach did not answer the question.

Deputy Martin should calm down.

This dispute is scheduled to take place tomorrow, when 10,000 workers who are absolutely essential to the functioning of our health services will take to the picket line. These are low-paid workers such as chefs and healthcare assistants. This strike will happen because the Government has broken its word.

The Taoiseach knows, as the workers know, that back in 2015 there was an agreement to reintroduce job evaluations. The reason was that there was a recognition that low-paid workers had taken on additional tasks and responsibilities and that due to austerity, the financial collapse and the policies of many assembled here, the workers were not receiving the correct levels of pay. The Taoiseach agreed to this job evaluation scheme in 2015 but of course he welshed on that and dragged his heels. Eventually, in 2017 a job evaluation scheme was initiated to avoid strike action at that time. When the exercise was carried out, it found in phases 1 and 2 that more than 6,000 workers were being underpaid. Low-paid workers are being substantially underpaid, by between €1,500 and €3,000 per year, which is a lot of money when one is on a low wage. The curious part of it is that the HSE accepted the validity and necessity of the evaluation process and its outcome. It then asked for this shortfall to be funded. As the Taoiseach knows, the cost would amount to some €16.2 million, which is a drop in the ocean and minuscule when compared with the waste and overspend his Administration has stood over.

The Taoiseach says he does not want the strike to happen. It strikes me that he does want it to happen because the basis of the strike action is his failure to honour and keep his word. There is no need for a Labour Court intervention and there is no need for the Workplace Relations Commission. What is required is a political decision and a political acknowledgement that these workers hold our health system together and a recognition that they are not being paid what they are due. It requires the Taoiseach, as Head of Government, to ensure that the moneys required to give these workers what they are entitled to is released. Sin é; that is it. That is the beginning, the middle and the end of it. If the Taoiseach really does not want this strike to happen, he should make sure that the word of the Government is kept and the request by the HSE for these moneys is met.

It is somewhat curious that the Deputy's solution to overspending by the HSE or in the health budget is to spend a little more. It is not just today but nearly every day and every week that Deputy McDonald or the Sinn Féin Party has another suggestion as to how we can overspend or breach budgets by even more. Whatever about the shortcomings that this Government may have, is it not a good thing that we are the Government and the Opposition is not? I can only imagine what the overspending would be like if Sinn Féin was involved in government.

Members of the public will make up their own mind on that too.

On resolving this dispute, and I believe it can be resolved, what is needed is engagement between the employer and the unions. That can happen and has happened already under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission. It can potentially happen now under the auspices of the Labour Court. The Government is very aware of the important role that support staff play in the health service. I know it as Taoiseach, as a former Minister for Health and as somebody who worked in public health in our hospitals for four years. Healthcare assistants, maternity care assistants, porters, laboratory aides, surgical instrument cleaners and other staff have an essential role to play in the health service and in keeping our hospitals running. We do not want to see this strike happen. I believe it can be averted and there is a mechanism to do that.

We will always insist that the health service is fully and properly resourced but we will always call the Government out, not on its spending but on its waste of public moneys and its wilful disregard for the public purse. Everybody has seen that, in particular in the case of the children's hospital.

The Deputy has not read the PwC report.

What is required here is not an intervention by the Labour Court or any other third party but for the Taoiseach to keep his word. That is what he has failed to do. We heard this line before about nursing staff and midwives and now we hear it about chefs and healthcare assistants. The Taoiseach waxes lyrical about their contribution to the system but he is not prepared to pay them. As Head of Government, he is not prepared to ensure that, for example, a grade 2 chef whose entry level pay is €24,000, which is hardly a fortune, and similar workers are fairly paid. The Taoiseach accepted the need for job evaluation, signed on the dotted line for it and now he is not prepared to honour the outcome of that process. That is the reality of this dispute and that is why there will be strike action tomorrow. The only way to avert that is not to reach for a third party but for the Taoiseach to keep his word and respect these low-paid workers.

I am not sure if there was a question in there but it is worth pointing out in the first instance that all of the staff involved in this dispute are receiving pay increases this year. It is pay restoration in some cases and pay increases in most cases. This dispute is about additional pay increases on top of those pay increases they are receiving under the public service stability agreement. The dispute centres on the timelines for implementation. As I said yesterday, the first two phases are complete. The third phase, which involves home help and home care workers, and the fourth phase, which involves other support staff, have yet to be completed and fully reported on. The dispute is around the implementation of these pay increases, which are in addition to the pay increases under the public service stability agreement that have been and will be paid. I believe this matter can be resolved.