Dr. Laura Bambrick:

There is little information on sick leave, as the officials told the committee at last week’s meeting.

The closest comparison we have is to look is how the public service sick leave scheme works. We can see that it costs about one tenth of the cost of the sick leave scheme to have those limited period of uncertified days and it would be the difference between falling ill on day one and day two and giving a worker the opportunity to see if it is something that will require a GP and an extended period of sick leave. A worker would not get those one or two days every time he or she goes on potential sick leave. It would be limited to a number of days every 12 months, as Ms McElwee suggested. A limited number of the ten days would be uncertified to allow people to see whether this was an ailment that would develop into a sickness.