Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

However, I will check because that is a reasonable point. The Deputy's final question was on what happens when one has exhausted one's three months and one goes onto temporary rehabilitation pay, that is, what does it mean and how will that be calculated. If standard sick leave limits or the critical illness provisions or both are exhausted and there is a realistic prospect that the individual will be able to return to work, as I stated already, he or she will then go on to temporary rehabilitation pay for the further period during the total period over which support is paid, up to two years. This two-year limit is designed to mirror the two year period over which illness benefit currently is paid by the Department of Social Protection. Temporary rehabilitation pay, as the Deputy is aware, used to be called the pension rate of pay and will be calculated and awarded in the same way. It is based on the pension that an individual would be paid, were he or she to retire at that particular point in time. There are issues on the length of time of the payment of the temporary rehabilitation pay that the public service unions are raising in the context of the final phase of deliberations before the Labour Court on 16 December and that the matter should be clarified then.

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