Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I support the my party's Bill. Unlike most other European countries, Irish workers have no legal right to be paid by their employer if absent from work because of illness. Whether to pay sick pay is entirely the decision of an employer. There is no legal obligation to do so. Dr. Ronan Glynn has spoken on this issue and said that NPHET had recommended to the Government that "whatever measures need to be put in place" should be put into place to ensure that workers who are sick can afford to not attend work. Dr. Glynn effectively said that the introduction of sick pay was important to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and recommended the Government to take action several weeks ago. So far, this Government has done nothing except to say that it will have a consultation process, which the Minister spoke to earlier.

While many unions have delivered sick pay arrangements for their members through collective bargaining agreements, workers in non-unionised jobs in the private sector can be forced to continue to work while sick or else they must rely upon social welfare. The enhanced Covid-19 illness benefit only provides €350 per week, so if a person is earning more than this but is struggling financially, he or she may be tempted to continue to work while sick with Covid-19. The issues experienced in meat factories, which played a big part of the lockdown in counties Kildare, Offaly and Laois, are examples of this problem. All workers are being asked not to go to work if they are showing symptoms of Covid-19. An employer, however, is not obliged to pay a worker who cannot come to work because he or she is sick with Covid-19, unless it is part of the contract of employment. This situation means that some workers who might have symptoms of coronavirus are forced to go to work as they cannot afford not to, thus spreading the virus further.

Ireland has an illness benefit scheme of €203 per week before tax for full-time PAYE workers, but in my experience as a Deputy, this can be very hard for people to access. Illness benefit is only paid from the seventh day of illness. A person must have at least two years of PRSI contributions and must have a certificate of incapacity to work signed by a doctor. We are all aware of the cost of a GP visit if one does not have a medical card. A GP visit can cost from between €30 and €70. Self-employed workers and workers over the age of 66 do not qualify.

The Labour Party Bill proposes that workers are entitled to six weeks' sick pay at the same rate as annual leave. According to the WHO, six weeks is the recovery time for a moderate to severe case of Covid-19. We propose that after six weeks the person would move onto illness benefit. Employers would pay the first six days of sick pay in its entirety for all workers, but after six days, the employer can claim any illness benefit that would be due to the worker. To encourage collective bargaining, the draft Bill provides that a collective agreement in the workplace can improve on this. In the public service, unions have delivered collective bargaining agreements providing sick pay of three months on full pay, followed by three months on half pay, with limits over a four-year rolling period. This draft Bill is an important protection for workers but is also very important in combatting Covid-19, as the lack of paid sick leave encourages workers who are struggling financially to continue to work even if they are ill, thus spreading the virus further. The Labour Party considers sick pay to be a basic right that workers in Ireland should have. We are launching the Bill to give workers the right to sick pay.

I now turn to the issue of parental leave.

As schools have reopened, parents have been in a position to return to work, but the threat of Covid-19 remains. Many parents will be forced to take unpaid leave for the duration of the school closure, evidence of which we have seen already. Those who may be struggling financially will find it incredibly difficult to cope if they are forced to take unpaid leave to look after their children.

As an extraordinary measure, the Labour Party is proposing paid parental leave when a school or preschool must close or reduce the number of pupils who can attend in order to comply with Government policy to stop the spread of Covid-19. In such a case, an employee who is the parent or adoptive parent of a child will be entitled to Covid-19 parental leave at full pay for so long as the child is unable to attend the school or preschool and the presence of the employee is required at home to care for the child.

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