Fury at eight-month Covid bonus delay
State fails to pay promised €1,000 to non-HSE staff
THE State’s failure to pay the Covid bonus to eligible staff who work outside the HSE, eight months after it was announced, was yesterday deemed unbelievable and unacceptable.
The €1,000 Covid recognition payment was announced on January 19 and since then all eligible HSE staff and Section 38 staff – agencies that are funded by the HSE – have received the payment.
However, there has been no official word as to when the remaining eligible staff will be paid.
Those who are entitled to get the payment include private nursing home and hospice staff; staff working in long-term residential care facilities for people with disabilities; people working agency roles in the HSE; healthcare support assistants contracted to the HSE; members of the Defence Forces who were redeployed to work on the frontline; and paramedics employed by Dublin Fire Brigade.
Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI) and the Alliance of Healthcare Assistants in Ireland (AHCAI) denounced the delay in paying the bonus, calling it ‘unacceptable’.
NHI chief Tadhg Daly said: ‘It is unacceptable that we are eight months down the line and the payment to workers who went through so much during Covid has still not been processed. The latest from the Department of Health after all that time is that a tender process must be entered into for rollout of the payment.
‘The scheme was announced by the Government in January. We’re approaching the year end and now they tell us they need to engage in a tender process.
‘It’s unbelievable that the State, which holds records regarding every individual’s employment and documented the rollout of the vaccination to 40,000 employees within our sector in a short period, cannot establish a mechanism to roll out the payment with minimum fuss.’
He said it is an ‘insult’ to staff who ‘served on the frontline’.
Mr Daly added: ‘The State has procrastinated on this very important matter for people who endured so much for so long during Covid. Staff in nursing homes feel insulted by the unacceptable delay. It is devaluing by the day, given inflation since January. It is so disappointing and damning of the State that it has not seen fit to have this payment rolled out.’
AHCAI chair Clare Doyle said: ‘Our healthcare assistants up and down the country did not dither and were not found wanting when it came to providing care to the most vulnerable in our society when Covid arrived. They provided vital care day in and day out, then and now, throughout this pandemic.’
Ms Doyle called the delay ‘shocking and unacceptable’.
Last week, it was reported a private company is to issue the payment to eligible staff to ensure that no worker is paid twice.
It is not known how many workers outside the HSE would be entitled to the payment but it is in the tens of thousands.
The Department of Health is tendering for outside expertise to help distribute the payment.
‘Staff feel insulted by extended delay’