There is an overarching issue concerning the management of human resources and industrial relations within the health services, which are, by any objective assessment, dysfunctional. Morale is very low across all grades and levels of people working in the health services. Pressure undoubtedly is rising, as health needs and pressure on staff are becoming more acute. The pressure is never-ending. Retention of key staff has become very problematic. Against this background, further significant disruption will occur tomorrow morning if the proposed strike involving attendants, porters, catering staff, and so on goes ahead. It is clear that there will be serious disruption to day cases, outpatient treatment and elective inpatient procedures. As Dr. Fergal Hickey said this morning, there will be delays and patients who are either in hospital or are trying to get into hospital tomorrow will endure great inconvenience.

The Government agreed to this job evaluation scheme during the negotiations on the last public service stability agreement. This was not foisted upon the Government by the Opposition; it readily entered into it. The agreement confirmed that pay rises worth between €1,500 and €3,000 per employee per year were justified. This was accepted by the HSE and by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The strike was averted last week. The issue being highlighted in the Dáil was constructive and a catalyst in that regard. From the Taoiseach's reply's last week it seems that he and the Government agree that the pay increases recommended by this job evaluation scheme should be honoured.

He said: "The dispute is around the implementation of these pay increases." Will he confirm that the Government accepts that the recommendations emanated from the job evaluation scheme reports? Does he accept that this is a process that was agreed to in 2015 and that the Government agrees that the various increases will need to be paid? The latest developments suggest the Government wants to drag out the process to 2022 with what the Minister, Deputy Harris, describes as a significant offer. Will the Taoiseach clarify and state transparently the Government's latest position on the job evaluation scheme and the pay increases recommended under it? It seems that there has been a collapse of trust - a breakdown of trust - between the Government side and SIPTU. SIPTU is arguing that the Government has abused the conciliation process and never meaningfully engaged with SIPTU representatives. Is that the case? Has the Government been foot-dragging on this issue?

I take the opportunity to offer my condolences to the Fianna Fáil Party on the death of Councillor Manus Kelly in the past couple of days. He was a phenomenal motor sportsman and must have been enormously proud to have been elected to Donegal County Council for Letterkenny. I offer our condolences to the Fianna Fáil Party on what must have been very shocking news in the past few days.

On the dispute, as the Deputy pointed out, we have many people working in the health service. About 115,000 people work across the public health service, which represents an increase of about 10,000 in three years. Notwithstanding the genuine difficulties we have in recruitment and retention, we have still managed to recruit an extra 10,000 staff in the past three years. It is a challenging environment in which to work, not least owing to rising demand as the population increases and ages and also the increasing expectations of patients and service users of the kind of service they should receive.

There has been detailed engagement involving the parties to the dispute, most recently at the WRC, both yesterday and this week. The dispute relates to a particular pay increase arising from a job evaluation process. All 10,000 of the staff involved will receive a pay increase of 2.75% this year. That is in the bag and half of it has been paid already, with the rest to be paid in September. The vast majority will also receive an incremental pay increase. It is about the timing of a third pay increase this year - the pay increase that arises from the job evaluation process.

The Government accepts the outcome of the job evaluation process. What is in dispute is how it will be funded, how it will be timed and, therefore, how it will be phased in. The initial response from the Government side - the employer's side - was that it should be paid in 2021 when all of the evaluation process was complete. It is not yet fully complete; I believe three phases of five have been completed. However, to try to come to an agreement in the past couple of days, the employer's side - the Government side - agreed to begin to phase in the pay increases this year. Even though there is no provision for it in the budget, out of goodwill and in an effort to resolve the dispute, an offer was made to begin phasing in the increases from 2019. It will be a third increase on top of an incremental pay increase and the 2.75% being received under the public service stability agreement, PSSA. Unfortunately, the offer was not accepted by the unions which have now decided to go ahead with the strike. The offer made last Friday stands - for the dispute to go to the Labour Court for binding arbitration. Where disputes cannot be resolved, where they are intractable, where it has not been possible to find a compromise at the WRC, in the past we have gone to the Labour Court. The employer's side - the Government side - is willing to go to the Labour Court for a binding determination. We regret that the union side is not willing to do so. It is unusual for a union to refuse to go to the Labour Court.

I acknowledge and accept the Taoiseach's expression of sympathy on the shocking and untimely passing of Manus Kelly who would have been an outstanding public representative for us in the Letterkenny electoral area. Our thoughts are with his wife, Bernie, family and friends.

I put it to the Taoiseach that SIPTU is reluctant to go to the Labour Court because it has the sense that the Government has been dragging its feet and that it has not been serious about implementation of the job evaluation scheme recommendations, a process that has been dragging on since 2015.

The background is that the Government agreed the process that far back. It is, therefore, striking that the Taoiseach acknowledged today that it has not been provided for in the budgetary figures. He said, however, that the Government has accepted the outcome and that he accepts that the increases will have to be paid. I take it that is his position, because last week the Opposition was berated for suggesting the very same thing and for even raising the issue.

The Taoiseach said that we are down now to the implementation phase of the recommendations but that there are has been a breakdown in trust. The union side clearly does not trust the Government on this issue, and I would appreciate his comments on that fact, hence the reluctance, it seems to me, on the union side to go to the Labour Court. Every effort must be made on all sides to avoid a strike tomorrow. Last week, thankfully, the strike was averted, but we face three more days next week and significant disruption for patients, who must take centre stage in our considerations.

Many of these workers start out on €24,000 per year, they have been promised this for five or six years and it has not materialised yet. It was part of the public service stability agreement they signed up to and have honoured.

The workplace evaluation assessment is not complete: three of the five phases are complete, perhaps the third is complete and the fourth is ongoing. The initial position was that payment would arise when the workplace evaluation scheme was complete. However, in an effort to come to a compromise in the past couple of days, the employer or Government side offered to begin implementation from November 2019. Unfortunately, that was rejected.

As I said, this can be resolved, and the offer to go to the Labour Court stands. If it is a matter of trust, the Labour Court is independent and will hear all sides of the argument in making a determination. The dispute can be resolved in that way and we can avoid any negative effects for patients across these 38 hospitals. It is unusual for the union side to refuse to go to the Labour Court and I hope that it will reconsider.

Before I begin, I take this opportunity to extend my deepest sympathies and those of my party to the friends and family of Manus Kelly, who tragically passed away in a terrible accident on Sunday. The people of Donegal took great pride in Manus's many achievements and successes, not least winning the Donegal International Rally three years in a row. His dedication and professionalism to his sporting achievements as a rally driver extended to other aspects of his life. He employed dozens of people in Letterkenny and, as the Taoiseach referred to, was recently elected to represent the people of that electoral area. My thoughts are with his friends, family and party colleagues at this very difficult time. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

Tomorrow, up to 10,000 support staff working across the State in 38 hospitals and healthcare facilities will strike, unless the Government lives up to the promises, commitments and agreements it has made. That is the long and the short of it. These workers include hospital porters, healthcare assistants, maternity care assistants and surgical instrument technicians. We can all agree that, without these workers, our hospitals would not be cleaned, our patients would not receive food and the health service would not function properly. They perform invaluable work and deserve to be treated and paid accordingly.

The job evaluation scheme, which ensured that workers were paid appropriately to reflect the changing skills and demands that their work requires, was suspended in 2009. This was reversed as part of the Lansdowne Road agreement, and recommencement of the job evaluation scheme was agreed and signed off by the Government back in 2015. In 2017, job evaluations were carried out and it was found that workers were being underpaid.

That is what tomorrow's strike is all about. It is not about workers demanding more than their due or making blind pay claims. It is about honouring agreements on which the Government signed off. It is there in black and white and the Government has failed to honour the commitments into which it entered.

Despite the Taoiseach's usual efforts to portray workers and their unions as unreasonable and all the rest, these workers are not seeking enrichment; far from it. For example, a healthcare assistant enjoys an entry level salary of less than €28,000. Even with the increase due under the job evaluation scheme, a healthcare assistant will still be earning less than €30,000. Nobody is getting rich here. The demands of workers are more than modest and the strike tomorrow is going ahead not as a matter of urgency but as an option of last resort.

We understand that the HSE has asked for this money to be provided from the Department but the Government is refusing to honour that agreement. As the employer in this situation, the Government must live up to its side of the bargain and honour its word. A commitment was made to these workers four years ago and again when the job evaluations were carried out in 2017. These are low-paid workers who perform invaluable work in our health service.

We all know that this dispute will be resolved at some point in time but there will be major disruption to patients, their families and the health service if this strike goes ahead tomorrow. These workers deserve the honouring of the agreement that was entered into four years ago by the Government.

Will the Taoiseach act at this late hour and play his part in resolving the strike to ensure workers get their fair dues and ensure there is no disruption to our health service tomorrow? The way to do that is to make a reasonable offer to the unions, to re-engage with them in the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, process. That is how we can resolve this and ensure that agreements are fulfilled and lived up to. That way we can ensure there is no disruption in a health service that is already strained at the seams.

The HSE received a budget from the Government, voted by the Oireachtas, of nearly €17 billion this year, an increase of approximately €1 billion on last year. It is not reasonable for an agency that is receiving such a big budget increase to come back looking for additional increases in spending during the year. It is often the case that additional money must be found towards the end of the year but we cannot operate a health service or a budget on the basis of ongoing demands for additional spending throughout the course of the year and I must take into account the strong advice received about that from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and others during the year.

It happens every year.

I ask the Opposition to also take account of that advice.

It is disappointing that the WRC talks, which were aimed at averting the strike by up to 10,000 SIPTU members, concluded yesterday without an agreement. As we are aware, in early June, SIPTU announced that 10,000 members working as support staff in 38 hospitals and healthcare facilities would engage in industrial action for periods of 24 hours on six dates in late June and early July. The WRC sought a deferral of the first two dates of strike action and invited the parties to resume talks on 20 June. This was agreed by SIPTU and was very much welcomed. However, SIPTU did advise that if a resolution was not found, it intended to take action on 26 June and again on 2, 3 and 4 July. Regrettably, that is now happening.

Constructive and positive engagement by the parties took place at the WRC. An offer was made by Government that staff in the grades concerned would be moved onto the appropriate salary scale starting from November this year. This would be on top of a 2.75% pay increase already guaranteed under the public service stability agreement, substantial benefits of the recent new entry deal and the payment of annual increments to most staff. We believe this was a fair and reasonable offer that would have enabled the implementation of the job evaluation scheme. Unfortunately, this has been rejected and therefore deemed inadequate to resolve the dispute.

The offer to go to the Labour Court remains on the table. Deputy Pearse Doherty referred to the strike as a last resort. It is not a last resort because the Labour Court is the next step and it is our deep regret that, on this occasion, the union concerned has refused to go to the Labour Court. That is the way to resolve this dispute and ensure that no patients are affected tomorrow.

That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the Labour Court.

The next step is for the Government to make an appropriate, reasonable offer and to re-engage in the WRC process. That should be done within the hour in order that we can ensure that patients who have appointments scheduled in our 38 hospitals and are being cared for in other healthcare facilities are not disrupted. That is the next step.

We saw good faith demonstrated by the workers and the unions when the strike was deferred. That happened because they believed there would be meaningful engagement by the Government side, but that did not materialise. What materialised was a completely inadequate offer that was rejected on Friday. It is my understanding there has been no engagement by the Government side with the unions since, despite what the Taoiseach has said and the blame-shifting to the low paid workers and their representatives.

The fact that the HSE has requested the money from the Department indicates that there is no dispute over whether the workers should be paid appropriately or that the job evaluation process was signed off on four years ago, with the evaluations taking place two years ago. It was deemed that the workers were underpaid. The dispute lies in the fact that the Government is unwilling to live up to that side of the agreement. On behalf of workers and the patients who will be disrupted, is it not sensible to resolve the dispute now, not tomorrow, the next day or the day after that? Will there be an appropriate offer to re-engage with the Workplace Relations Commission and lift the phone to trade union officials in order to commit to meaningful engagement to find a resolution on behalf of workers and patients who are relying on the health service?

I thank the Deputy. The offer being made is appropriate. It is to begin phasing in the increases from November this year, notwithstanding the enormous budgetary constraints.

It amounts to €2 per week.

It is on top of a 2.75% increase already guaranteed under the public service stability agreement, increases to new entrants and the payment of annual increments. The next step should be referral to the Labour Court.

Has it been referred?

If a dispute is intractable, we use the mechanisms the State has at hand.

Does the Taoiseach understand the Labour Court?

In the first instance, it is the WRC and if that does not work, it goes to the Labour Court. The management side has offered a Labour Court hearing on the dispute.