Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I wish to talk about nursing homes and meat plants. Workers in HSE nursing homes are entitled to sick pay. If they present with Covid symptoms, they can quarantine with a guarantee of full pay.

They are under no economic pressure to go to work. Only 20% of nursing homes in the State, however, are HSE nursing homes; the other 80% are privately owned. There is no legal obligation on those employers to provide sick pay schemes. When the chief executive of Nursing Homes Ireland, Tadhg Daly, came before the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response some months ago, he was unable to tell me how many private nursing homes operated sick pay schemes or what percentage did so. There are clearly many workers in private nursing homes - I suspect a majority, and possibly a large one - who cannot quarantine with a guaranteed decent income if they come down with Covid symptoms. They are under real economic pressure to go to work.

That is pure madness, as it is for the Government to try to postpone the prospect of any action on this for six months. According to SIPTU, 90% of meat plant workers are not in sick pay schemes. One of the Ministers of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Senator Hackett, stated this was unacceptable and told the Sunday Independentlast month that these workers deserve dignity, respect and the full protection of the State. Today her Green Party colleagues are lining up alongside Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, trying to prevent any action on this issue for six months. What hypocrisy this is. Is it not a really dangerous path to go down as the second wave begins to build in this country?

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