Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank both witnesses for their presentations. This is a very welcome discussion. Sinn Féin very much welcomes the introduction of a sick pay scheme. It is long overdue and it is good to see employers and unions working collaboratively to achieve this goal.

Could both witnesses comment on why Ireland has been an outlier for so long when it comes to the provision of sick pay? We quite rightly often hear from IBEC in terms of making sure we are not an outlier in respect of investment in research and development compared to our European colleagues but we have been an outlier for decades on the subject of sick pay. Why has this been the case for so long?

One of my key concerns about this Bill is the practicalities of it, particularly regarding workers requiring certification from a GP. Let us be practical here. Right now, if a worker is sick, he or she is not going to get an appointment with a GP today. In fact, he or she will be lucky to get an appointment this week. That is the reality we must recognise. We must also recognise that unlike our colleagues across most of Europe, where there is no charge to access a GP, here we are looking at anything between €60 and €80. This means that the first day's sick leave pay is effectively gone because the person has had to pay it out for a doctor's certificate. This is clearly a barrier to workers accessing the scheme. Would it not be better to go for a limited self-certification period for the first couple of days not just because it would be the right thing to do in terms of not punishing workers by having them pay €60 but also because it is simply not practical to expect a worker to be able to access a GP on the same day he or she is sick?