Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I will take 40 seconds.

We need to get away from the idea that when someone goes out sick, he or she is deliberately doing so in order to be absent from work. That was the point made in the Minister's speech, because this measure featured in a paragraph entitled "absenteeism". The purpose is to punish workers who go sick. I do not know what the Labour Party is doing at this stage, but it goes against the very spirit of what the party was meant to be about. It is a very anti-worker measure that brands every worker who goes sick as someone who wants to go on the lang or is deliberately absenting himself or herself from work, which is not fair. People get sick for genuine reasons and there are other ways to deal with absenteeism, but this is punitive on workers.

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