Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

That is what we are supposed to do, that is, be conduits for the experiences of people outside the House and to bring those experiences into it and, if I might say, to puncture the bubble that sometimes exists around this House, so that the real human reality of how policy decisions made in here play out in real lives is brought back in here. Surely that is the point of democracy. I would not belittle it.

Those figures deserve to be broken down even more to find out what are the illnesses that are leading to higher levels of absenteeism in the health service, higher levels among special needs assistants than in education generally, which speaks for itself, and higher levels among front-line gardaí than among those who are civilians, which again speaks for itself. The people at the front line having to deal with the consequence of the economic crisis and the impact of austerity on the ordinary members of the public, with whom they must engage, are more likely to be sick and the figures the Minister gave bear that out. I would not like to be at the housing desk in a local authority at the moment because the situation is desperate. These people are dealing with an impossible situation. How soul destroying must it be to be in the housing department of a local authority with people coming in day after day, more and more desperate because they are longer and longer on the housing list and are living in more deplorable conditions? What does that do to somebody's mental health? It crushes it. That is the reality and that is why people are getting sick.

Even though sicknesses are being induced by circumstances beyond the control of workers, we are going to put in arbitrary dates and say that after a certain point, people's entitlement to full sick pay will be cut. That leads on to the point Deputy McDonald made. One may not be able to go back to work after two years. What used to be six months is now three months. These are arbitrary dates. If the Minister is saying he wants to take into consideration people's illnesses, then he would not have those arbitrary dates. He would look at what is making people sick and at their illnesses and would look at it on a case-by-case basis, as this Government so often does in other matters. Let us actually look at what is making people sick and at their illnesses.

I accept the Minister does not want people to be out sick forever and to be labelled as sick. I suspect the vast majority of people who are on sick leave would rather get back to work, so let us assist them in doing so. That is the sort of reform we need but this is arbitrary and will undoubtedly hurt people.

I refer to defining critical illness and the area of mental illness, which relates to the point about stress. Let us not yet again make mental illness the poor relation of sickness and not really take it seriously when, in fact, it can be extraordinarily debilitating. Let us not say it is not really critical. I am fascinated and worried by how the Minister will define "critical". There are lots of grey areas but will every person who has cancer and is getting cancer treatment be assumed, as a matter of course, to be critical?

I would certainly hope that will be the case. It would be nice if the Minister said it was because we could be confident about one category, at least. However, I fear it may not be.

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