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

I have two quick points. The first is that while everyone can say the word “balance”, but this is not some neutral thing. The balance goes one way or the other. I do not hide that I am trying to shift the balance in favour of workers, relatively speaking, against employers. To be clear, I think there should be compensation for small businesses. I am unashamed about that. There is not some abstract, floating-in-the-air, perfect balance that can exist. There is the question of weighing up which ones we think are more important here. In this situation, we think that what is presented is not enough for workers and that the interests of employers have too much weight, in terms of what the Minister will take into consideration.

My second point is a general one. It must have been said ten times now that it is the employer who is going to pay for this but where do people think the employer gets the money from? Who creates the wealth the employer will use to pay for the sick pay? All of the money comes from the worker at the end of the day. Where is the profit coming from that the sick pay is going to be paid out of? It is coming from the employee. There is this idea that the employer is just taking money from their personal wealth or elsewhere to pay the sick pay. This is a slight increase in wages and the worker is getting back slightly more of the value they are producing. However, they are still not getting the full value, which is why the employer will still make a profit. That is why I reject the idea that this is not ultimately coming from the employee as opposed to the employer.