Dr. Laura Bambrick:

In Australia, the employer pays all the contribution. The employee pays none. They pay 12%. Even at 7%, that is one aspect.

If we look at the EU 27, over 8% of GDP is taken on average from employers as a social insurance contribution. The equivalent in Ireland, GNI* stripping out the multinationals, is 4.4%. We pay very low employer social insurance, at 11.5%. Even by asking them to pay 7%, we will still be blow the EU average. They would have to be paying 9% just to take us to the average amount.

As we move into a more modern wealthy economy, we are moving away from employers paying their workers a weekly wage and nothing else. We are moving into a continental approach where people have income insurance, so if they are too sick to work, they have paid sick days, and when people are too old to work, they have a contributory pension. That is what the State is moving towards in introducing statutory sick pay and in introducing auto-enrolment, bringing us into line with our rich peers in the EU, of which we are a member.