Minister responds to Tipperary TD over questioning on divisive Nenagh Community Nursing Unit

Concerns have been raised in the Dáil over the future of 74 healthcare workers at the Nenagh community nursing unit, as a one-year contract with private operator Bartra Healthcare nears its end.

Speaking on Thursday, 18 September, Deputy Ryan O’Meara highlighted the uncertainty facing staff at the facility, which was taken over by the HSE last year to operate as a step-down unit for University Hospital Limerick (UHL). Bartra Healthcare had been contracted to manage the service on an interim basis, but that arrangement is set to conclude this month.

In correspondence dated 3 July, Bartra informed employees that their contracts and employment status would transfer to the HSE under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2003, known as TUPE. However, Deputy O’Meara said 41 of the 74 employees have since contacted him expressing concern that no such confirmation has yet been received from the HSE.

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“These are 74 employees who have done excellent work as healthcare workers,” O’Meara told the chamber. “Most of them are international workers who came to this country on visas to do this exact work. They now do not know where they stand.”

The Tipperary TD called for urgent clarity on three points: whether Bartra and the HSE have reached an agreement, whether TUPE applies in this case, and whether any delays will affect the promised transfer of the nursing unit back to the people of Nenagh.

Responding on behalf of the Government, Minister of State Jennifer Carroll MacNeill confirmed that the facility will revert to community nursing unit status, but stopped short of providing assurances on the employment transfer.

“Let me not comment on Bartra Healthcare and the transfer of undertakings,” she said, “but what I can say is that there is active recruitment across the HSE in all cases to try to bring more people in. We want to employ all of those people, whether by transfer of undertakings or by means of a different recruitment process. We want all of those people to be facilitated and productively employed within the HSE.”

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Minister Carroll MacNeill acknowledged the urgency of the matter and noted the broader staffing pressures across the health service.

For now, uncertainty remains for the Nenagh staff, many of whom are migrant workers whose visas are tied to their employment. With the Bartra contract set to expire within weeks, local representatives and workers are seeking definitive answers on their future.