Ms Patricia King:

I thank Senator Gavan for the question. The overall view of the coverage of sick pay at the moment is that there is a collectively bargained agreement in the public sector which covers about 350,000 workers who have provisions of a sick pay scheme. In the main, the commercial and semi-State bodies also have collectively agreed sick pay schemes. Quite a number of mainly larger entities, in the chemical and medical device areas, have collectively agreed sick pay schemes.

It is very much the same picture in the private sector as it is for the coverage of pension in that about two thirds of workers in the private sector are not covered by any scheme other than current State payments during the course of an illness. We are in a bad way in the private sector in terms of the coverage of sick pay.