Ms Maeve McElwee:

I thank the Senator for his question. While I am not a payroll specialist, I know that there are considerable concerns among members about the timescale for the legislation’s introduction. There are undoubtedly any number of challenges that would arise for organisations in its implementation, how it could be managed and how employers would integrate the statutory sick pay scheme, given the complexities they already deal with in running their existing sick pay schemes. Many employers, particularly those that have grown over many years, perhaps by acquisition, do not have a single sick pay scheme. We could identify multiple schemes in a number of our larger members that have not had the opportunity to amalgamate them. There could be ten or 15 schemes still running. That poses a major challenge to trying to integrate a statutory sick pay scheme, particularly where so many questions remain. In section 9, for example, no clear understanding can be taken from the current wording as to whether an employer’s scheme can be considered better in the round or who can consider it to be better. Would one or two days’ difference in a current private scheme make it better than a scheme that the WRC adjudicated on two days earlier? The Bill provides no clarity or guidance whatsoever. For employers trying to integrate a scheme like that into their overall payroll programmes would be problematic. I can see where the body is coming from in that regard.