David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank our guests for coming in and for their presentations. This is a big change for Ireland and we are pleased to have the opportunity to discuss this with all the actors involved because we want to get it right. Ms McElwee spoke about the sectors that have been most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. She might expand on that and explain what those sectors are. She also mentioned in her presentation that there are additional costs involved in the replacement of skills, with little or no notice, which are lost during a period of sick leave. Is it not the case that regardless of sick leave some employers would have to replace skills if somebody was out sick?

We need to explore the question of existing schemes being more favourable than statutory sick pay. I agree with Ms McElwee that we need to drill down into that because I do not see how people could be paid on the double. The witnesses from IBEC said they would give us more information and I would like them to give us an indication as to what sick pay schemes are out there already, how they are operated by various companies and how they work. That would help us to examine this. Ms McElwee mentioned in her presentation that 307, or 60%, of respondents came back and said that they operated sick pay schemes. Ms McElwee mentioned more than once that the bigger companies seem to be operating a sick pay scheme or maybe more than one scheme in some instances and the smaller companies will be under pressure. We are all agreed that we do not want to put pressure on SMEs to the extent that they cannot operate this. We need to find a way around that but big companies can well afford it. I have also been looking at some research, which I am not sure if IBEC has been looking at. The research maintains that paid sick leave is good for business. Rather than impacting on business, if it is done properly it can increase worker productivity, reduce the spread of contagious illnesses, keep businesses open during Covid-19, as was the case in some states in America and reduce worker turnover. There are huge positives to paid sick leave and some of the larger companies that operate such schemes probably recognise this and understand that happy workers lead to better productivity and so on. We might need to talk about that.

I have a question for Dr. Bambrick as well. I would like to further explore the issue of bogus self-employment. I was speaking with some employers recently and they maintained that were they to operate various statutory schemes like this one, they would be competitively disadvantaged by other companies that operate bogus self-employment. I would like to hear Dr. Bambrick expand on bogus self-employment because some employers I spoke with were concerned about that. The 38-week contracts are another issue we need to explore further. Dr. Bambrick mentioned that self-certified sick leave typically costs about one tenth of the total cost of public service sick pay. Where does that statistic come from? I have looked at what the HSE and others do and the HSE provides seven days of self-certified paid sick leave in a continuous two-year period. If it is self-certified then how is there a cost? Maybe I am missing something here and excuse me if I am. Dr. Bambrick also mentioned that the Social Insurance Fund should be used in some instances, which is interesting and curious, even though others have said that should not happen.