Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This issue came up from the very start. We are trying to strike a balance and everybody recognises that workers need a right to sick pay and that traditionally this was provided only by the State and the employer did not play any role and that was not fair or balanced. The difficulty with the proposal, and I can understand how others can say that sick pay should be extended, is that the reality is that the State takes on the responsibility after a certain period of time and sustains pay but in many workplaces, of course, there are much better terms than the State arrangement alone. We are trying, therefore, to provide a safety net for people who are not in those more generous schemes in order to balance that against the reality that other Deputies referred to, which is that there are many small businesses with a small number of employees who are customer-facing and do not have the sorts of options to substitute and to cover which larger employers who are not in the customer-facing business have. This means that they have to get somebody in when somebody is out sick. There is this balance to be struck and I am unsure as to how it is to be resolved.

At a minimum, I would hope the Minister of State would commit to having a review done after a reasonably short period to see how this is impacting on those smaller employers, with the possibility of some form of relief for them other than the long-stop one which is in the Bill of proving inability to pay. That is a fairly draconian system in order to establish that level of proof.

The Minister of State is quite correct in that we are trying to strike a balance. Employers have a responsibility here but we have to try design that responsibility in a way that does not unfairly impact on certain types of employer. There is scope to try to explore that further before Report Stage, if the Minister of State can do so, or at least by way of a review at a very early date to address the fears of excessive burdens being placed on some of these labour-intensive customer-facing roles and the need for some relief.