Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 5, to delete lines 23 to 25.

This goes to the heart of one of the big problems with the Bill, which is the number of sick days. The Government proposal is that we start with three and that it will be increased over time, subject to the Minister agreeing to do it. There is no guarantee in the Bill that will even happen.

My amendment is simple. It is to remove the limitation of three and to state that people are entitled to sick pay when they are sick, regardless of the number of days they are sick. That should be a basic right and we should deal with the consequences of that in terms of compensation for employers, etc., at a later stage.

The basic point is that when people are sick, they should be entitled to sick pay and we should not arbitrarily limit it. We certainly should not arbitrarily limit it to three days, which is a very small number of days for an entire year.