Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

While I might find agreement with Ms King, I think somebody earning €100,000 could afford to pay something, and the employers who are able to pay that money definitely could. This brings us back, however, to the disconnect from the smaller people in the private sector. It was said that about two thirds of private sector companies do not offer any kind of voluntary sick pay scheme. For a large number of those, particularly the businesses that have just been highlighted such as the small beauticians and coffee shops, if they employ three people and one of them goes off sick and they have to provide a statutory sick pay scheme and replace that person in the business, how is that small business supposed to pay for that? How does Ms King feel a small business can support that payment?