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

That commitment is welcome. Let us assume we got the new amendment, it would deal with a part of the problem that concerns workers with the same employer but the contract has been broken, etc. I still think that there is an outstanding issue that has not been dealt with. Let us consider a pure and simple situation where someone is not going to have his or her service broken but starts work somewhere and is not entitled to sick pay for the first 13 weeks. The explanation the Minister of State gave is that the employee does not have a relationship with his or her employer at that stage. If one is a worker and a boss asks for something to be done in work, the worker cannot say to him or her that there is no work relationship yet. It is a contract, one must work, one is being paid, one is treated as a worker and one has all the responsibilities of a worker who has been in employment for more than 13 weeks but for some reason, we are arbitrarily saying this worker does not get the rights that go with his or her employment in terms of sick pay.

The commitment is welcome in terms of the issue the Minister of State is dealing with as it is a large part of the problem. However, I still think that there is an outstanding issue in that when someone starts work somewhere, he or she should still be entitled to sick pay.