Planned strike by Mayo healthcare workers called off

HUNDREDS of people with disabilities will receive services after a planned strike by Mayo healthcare workers was called off in the early hours of this morning.

An agreement was reached after unions and Government representatives ended talks at the Workplace Relations Commission at shortly after 3am.

It has been proposed that Section 39 healthcare workers will ask the Government an 8 percent increase in funding for pay.

As part of the agreement, a method will be established to deal with the question of restoring the link between workers in the community and voluntary sector with equivalent pay grades in the Health Service Executive.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions will be recommending the deal to its members, who have suspended industrial action pending the outcome of a ballot.

Section 39 workers – who had not had a pay rise since 2008 - have complained about being paid less than HSE counterparts in similar words.

Employees of Western Care, the Irish Wheelchair Association, Enable Ireland and family resource centres were among the organisations due to indefinitely withdraw their services today. Emergency cover was to be provided for those who do not have family to look after them.

Martina McAndrew, the mother of a young woman who attends the Irish Wheelchair Service, in Belmullet, described the planned strike as ‘the height of cruelty’.

Speaking to The Mayo News today, Ms McAndrew said she was ‘so relieved’ that the strikes were called off.

Brian Langan, a Westport-based man living with a disability, expressed his support for the Section 39 workers, even though he risked having nobody to assist him this morning.

Mr Langan was subsequently able to secure care before the announcement that the strikes were to be cancelled.

Mayo Sinn Féin TD Rose Conway Walsh also welcomed the government's offer to Section 39 workers but said the situation should not have needed to be resolved at 3 o'clock in the morning. 

"We can’t have a situation where people are paid differently for doing the exact same job and we are wholly dependent on the workers who provide these essential services," Deputy Conway-Walsh told The Mayo News. 

"They are not add-on services, they are essential services and we are wholly reliant on them to do that and I want to commend the workers for the great job that they do day in day out."