Home help workers are being taken for granted because they are women, a protest group was told at Liberty Hall, Dublin, yesterday.
Siptu vice-president Brendan Hayes had told 200 home helpers, in advance of a march on the Department of Health to protest about pay and conditions, that the Health Service Executive (HSE) sees them as being at "the bottom of the food chain", but they are "the unsung heroes" of the health service.
Mr Hayes said that by protesting, home helpers would be helping themselves and their clients, who had experienced a severe reduction in service hours in the last few years.
The home help service offers assistance to the ill and elderly in their own homes.
There are an estimated 12,000 people employed as home helps around the State, the majority of whom are women. Some are employed directly by the HSE, others through local voluntary groups funded by the HSE.
Home helpers work from five to 39 hours a week. However, their hours are not predictable. If a client is in hospital or unavailable for care, the home help does not get paid.
This affects their holiday and sick pay entitlements as well as their weekly income.
According to Siptu, representing up to 4,500 home helpers, an agreement was reached with the HSE in April 2004 to end "zero hour" contracts. However, the agreement has not been honoured.
The group was also addressed by Labour spokeswoman for health Liz McManus, Fine Gael health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey, Sinn Féin councillor Daithí Doolan and Siptu organisers Paul Bell, Daragh O'Connor and Orlagh Fawl.
Following the meeting, the group marched from Liberty Hall to the Department of Health at Hawkins House where they presented more than 2,000 postcards from their clients calling for better support for the home help service.
Mary Stephenson, a home help worker with Wicklow Community Service, said they only wanted to be treated the same as every other healthcare worker.
"We do the same work as a care attendant from the health board but we are not on the same rate," she said.
"We are the backbone of the health service because we keep people out of hospital. We want a basic weekly salary we can rely on."
The women also complained about the practice of offering clients half an hour's care instead of a full hour.
A spokesman for the HSE employers' agency said an agreement in 2000 had provided for a significant improvement in pay and conditions but denied that there was an agreement on "zero hours contracts".
"Most home helps would know what hours they will be working from week to week and if hours are lost there is a genuine effort to find replacements," he said.
"There are times when there may be no work available and if a person has been working with the HSE for a number of years and has no hours, they are entitled to redundancy."
Home help: how it works
Home helps are paid €12.59 per hour, rising to €13.99 per hour based on the number of years served.
The HSE is not legally obliged to provide home help services but in practice every HSE area does, either directly or through voluntary organisations.
Home help services are provided to assist people to remain in their own home and to avoid the necessity of entering institutional care.
The service is generally free to medical card holders. Others may be asked to make a contribution to the service and in some cases people may have to pay all the costs involved.
The duties of a home help include assisting people with normal household tasks, such as shopping, cooking and cleaning, and personal care, such as bathing and dressing.
Applications for home help are accepted through local public health nurses, who assess the needs of each client based on factors including income, other family support and remoteness from services.
Emergency cases are prioritised, other cases may take two to three weeks to be assessed, and "less prioritised cases could be waiting longer".
