Minimum pay rate increase deferred for healthcare assistants from outside EEA

Increases to the minimum rates of pay required to be provided to healthcare assistants from outside the EEA are to be deferred in order to allow nursing home operators address the funding requirements. The increases are for those workers from outside the EEA holding employment permits allowing them to work in Ireland.

The new minimum rates, up from €27,000 to €30,000, were intended to apply to applications or renewals submitted from Wednesday, but after a meeting between Minister of State at the Department for Employment and Enterprise, Neale Richmond, and representatives of Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI) on Monday, as well as engagements with other employers, it was confirmed on Tuesday the increases would be deferred for a period.

NHI chief executive Tadhg Daly said he appreciated the move at a time that nursing home operators were under particular pressure.

“We had a very positive meeting and it was encouraging that the Minister understood the predicament the sector is in. We absolutely support the principle of improving the pay of people working in nursing homes, they deserve more money for the important and hard work they do, but the funding structure has to be there and the Government is the ultimately paymaster,” he said.

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In a statement, the department said the delay would apply to healthcare assistants and home support workers. “The purpose of this deferral is to give the nursing home sector sufficient time to meet the financial requirements of these salary adjustments in line with their funding model.”

Several thousand healthcare assistants are understood to be working in Ireland on permits across the wider healthcare sector but Mr Daly said that in the nursing homes the problem went beyond that particular cohort with the proposed increases inevitably having knock-on effects for other workers.

The deferral is to allow for further engagement, it is understood, with both sides committed to achieving the €30,000 rate.

Increases to the minimums for other roles, including meat processors, butchers, horticulture workers and language skills specialists, are set to take effect as planned on Wednesday.

In some instances the increases are substantial with the minimum rates for meat processing workers going from just under €23,000 per year to €30,000, and there has been some criticism of the short notice given.

Colm Collins, a director at immigration consultants, Fragomen, said clients were busy on Tuesday trying to get applications in prior to the higher rates taking effect, with some indications that three-four times as many applications were being made compared with the same time last year.

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