A local Senator is calling for the Pandemic Special Recognition payment to be issued to hospital cleaning and catering staff as soon as possible.
The Special Recognition Payment of €1,000 was announced by the government in January of last year in acknowledgement of the work by healthcare staff during the health crisis.
Senator Aisling Dolan says over half of cleaning and catering staff members in our hospitals have still not received anything.
She says a company has been appointed to manage payments for contract employees, but it's very unfair that it's taking this long.
''For the likes of cleaners and caterers, a lot of hospitals would have contract staff, they are not direct HSE employees. The challenge here is that there's a company that's now managing payments and they would manage payments to nursing homes and section 39 organisations, the majority of those groups have received payments but a large number of the contractors, those agencies, only 45% of those groups have received payment and what I'm calling for here is to accelerate payment.''
