Labour Court recommends €80,000 goodwill offer in HSE South East subsistence dispute

The Labour Court recommended that HSE South East improve its goodwill offer to €80,000 to settle a dispute over subsistence payments for Family Support Workers. The recommendation was dated 20 March 2007. The Court also recommended immediate payment of retrospection due for 2005 and 2006. The Services Industrial Professional Technical Union sought outstanding payments dating from July 1998, when the workers were placed on the equivalent of the Group 8 (Non-Nursing) scale. Management accepted subsistence should be paid but disputed the starting date and said notional bases used for travel allowances were not appropriate for calculating subsistence. It had offered €56,000 for years before 2005. The Court recommended that new bases for future payments be agreed as part of discussions on aligning the workers with Primary Care Workers.