Dr. Laura Bambrick:

Looking at which country offers the best for Ireland, because we are a late mover and because there are already a number of good collectively-bargained voluntary sick pay systems in place, we have to be careful when we are introducing a statutory sick pay that layering over that model does not have the perverse consequences of displacing good existing benefits. It is possible that we will be taking a mishmash and borrowing different parts of the policy from different countries. There will not be a one-size-fits-all solution. We are not at that stage of our negotiations, saying we will take, for example, the French model or the Dutch model. My own thinking around this is it will be a patchwork of the different schemes, probably closer to some countries than others. However, no one system is without little bits that would be problematic.