The Minister for Health is meeting the chief executive of the Eastern Regional Health Authority, Mr Donal O'Shea, to discuss problems in reorganising health services in the greater Dublin region.
His move follows a protest at the Department yesterday by workers owed £1.5 million in arrears by a health board agency.
The workers are employed by Eastern Vocational Enterprises (EVE) Holdings, which provides community care for around 1,000 psychiatric and mentally handicapped patients.
Last night the South-Western Health Board, which provides funding for EVE Holdings on behalf of the ERHA, gave a written commitment to SIPTU health services secretary Mr Paul Bell that his members would be paid their arrears by May 3rd. The amounts owed range from £600 to £18,000, with most staff owed around £10,000.
Last night Mr Bell welcomed the breakthrough and thanked the Minister, Mr Martin, for his intervention. He renewed his call for the abolition of the ERHA, which he said had only added another layer of bureaucracy to the health services.
SIPTU had intended to extend its protest campaign to target not only the Minister but all senior health administrators in the ERHA area, because the SWHB had failed to honour a commitment to pay the arrears by the beginning of February.
Mr Bell said his members had been reluctant to picket the Minister's office and had only done so after failing to establish who was responsible for the delays within the ERHA structures. "We are glad Mr Martin has now intervened so effectively on our behalf," he added.
Only 30 of 100 EVE Holdings employees took part in the protest at the Department of Health headquarters in Hawkin's House, Dublin, yesterday because they did not want to disrupt services to patients.
SIPTU parked a trailer outside the building with a large "health warning" poster proclaiming "Health Authority's Pay Late policy is a matter of life and debt".
A small group of protesters, including Mr Bell, met Mr Martin's special adviser, Ms Deirdre Gillane. She told them Mr Martin had spoken to the chief executive of the SWHB, Mr Pat Donnelly, about the problem. The Minister now plans to meet Mr O'Shea about the arrears and related management issues within the next few days.