Dr. Laura Bambrick:

I will comment quickly on the questions put forward by the Deputy; I know we are short on time. Our two big concerns for trade unions in winning the right for statutory sick pay, forgetting about the details of the proposed Bill, are what Ms McElwee talked about whereby it could lead to a displacement of existing occupational sick pay at company level, which, at ten days, actually has ended up being more generous than what is in the proposed legislation. All of a sudden, instead of the proposed legislation becoming a floor it becomes a ceiling.

The second issue we had, to which the Deputy drew attention, is whether this will incentivise more bogus self-employment because there will be an incentive for some employers to avoid the costs that will be imposed on them. That is why we made our first recommendation in respect of changing the definition in section 2 as to who is covered. That would take in many of those workers who are providing services rather than under a contract of employment.

The Deputy referred to people who are working in ECCE, also known as the free year or playgroup year. If early years professionals are working for the service providers that just provide those playgroup years, they have to sign on for the summer. They do not have continuous contracts of employment because the facility is not getting the funding through the Government scheme. Under this proposed Bill, they would have to build up their entitlement again. A person who starts back in September would not be eligible until December under this Bill.

The reason self-certified sick leave is still creating a cost in respect of the scheme is that the worker would still get paid for those pays but he or she would not be obliged to provide the employer with a GP certificate. Self-certified and uncertified days still operate the same costs to the scheme. The difference is having to provide a GP certificate for those days or not. That is where the 10% comes.

On the Social Insurance Fund, as I mentioned earlier, it is recommended - and we support this - that where an employer has shown an inability to meet the costs of the scheme, they can go to the Labour Court. To ensure that the employee is not left out of pocket, however, in the same way that we do with redundancies in the context of companies that are letting workers go but are still trading, the Social Insurance Fund picks up the cost and then the charge is imposed on the employer. Over time, the Department works with that employer to ensure that the money is paid back. This means that neither the employee, in the first instance, nor the Social Insurance Fund, in the medium to long term, are out of pocket.