{"id":567740,"date":"2026-07-25T16:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T16:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567740\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T16:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T16:02:09","slug":"strike-planned-at-irelands-largest-dementia-facility-averted-with-talks-planned-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567740\/","title":{"rendered":"Strike planned at Ireland\u2019s largest dementia facility averted with talks planned \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A planned strike on Monday<\/a> at Ireland\u2019s largest dementia facility has been deferred after Siptu accepted an invitation from the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) to engage in talks on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

On Friday, the union announced an escalation in a long-running dispute involving housekeeping staff, with a 72-hour strike at St Joseph\u2019s Centre in Shankill, Co Dublin.<\/p>\n

However, the strikes planned for Monday and Tuesday have been postponed to allow for talks, said Siptu organiser Michelle Waller. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf no progress is made at the WRC, the strike action planned for Wednesday, 29th July, will go ahead,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

About 20 household and domestic staff are involved in the dispute as they pursue what the union says is substantial evolution in their roles. They say their jobs have come to involve a significant element of patient care and want that recognised in their grades and pay.<\/p>\n

The members\u2019 claim was the subject of recent talks at the WRC<\/a>, which broke down without agreement, and there have already been several one-day stoppages.<\/p>\n

St Joseph\u2019s Centre, which is part of St John of God services, is the State\u2019s largest care home dedicated solely to dementia care. It provides residential, respite and day care services to more than 80 people daily.<\/p>\n

In June, Siptu members voted in favour of industrial action in a ballot on the union\u2019s claim for the regrading of household and domestic staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur members met on Friday evening and agreed to defer the action at the request of the WRC,\u201d said Waller on Saturday. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe welcome the invitation … to engage and hope to be able to make progress on the issues in dispute at Tuesday\u2019s conciliation conference; however, in the absence of progress, Wednesday\u2019s proposed action will proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has said the residents were incredibly vulnerable and deserve the highest quality of care possible.<\/p>\n

In its statement on Friday, St Joseph\u2019s said it was \u201cdisappointed\u201d at the then-planned three-day strike after it had made several proposals in an effort to resolve the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cSt Joseph\u2019s Centre has been and remains focused on resolving the ongoing industrial relations matter involving household\/domestic staff constructively and as quickly as possible, while continuing to safeguard the safety, dignity and wellbeing of residents, day care members and colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

It criticised comments from Siptu that it said did not reflect the \u201cshared commitment we understood both parties had to keeping resident care, dignity, respect and confidentiality at the centre of all communications.<\/p>\n

\u201cSt Joseph\u2019s Centre does not accept a number of assertions made in Siptu\u2019s statement, particularly in relation to staffing, training and care. Household staff have always received role-specific training appropriate to their duties.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A planned strike on Monday at Ireland\u2019s largest dementia facility has been deferred after Siptu accepted an invitation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,20167],"class_list":["post-567740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-siptu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}