Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I too welcome the Bill. It is a much slighter document than the Electoral Reform Bill the House just dealt with, but it is no less impactful for that. Its impact will be felt most by those who need it most. As the Tánaiste noted in his opening remarks, it creates a new right here in Ireland, one that is long overdue. It is still a case of playing catch-up. As the Tánaiste acknowledged, Ireland is one of the few jurisdictions that does not yet have this right enshrined in law. However, the Bill is a significant step in the right direction, towards providing what is needed.

All Members will accept that we learned a harsh lesson during the Covid pandemic that this legislation was sorely needed and it is everybody's interests for workers who are sick to stay at home. That can be a difficult decision to make, however, particularly for vulnerable workers, even though it is good for their welfare and for the wider good, as noted by the Tánaiste.

A phrase that is not in the Bill but is in the exploratory memorandum jumped out at me. It describes one of the purposes of the Bill as being, "to set a minimum floor of entitlement for employees who are unable to work due to illness or injury". That reminded me of the remarks of President Higgins, a colleague of Deputy Ó Ríordáin's who is in a larger house at the moment, who, in a speech in this House on recovering the promise of a real republic, stated, "what one would do ... would be to speak about a floor of citizenship below which people would not be allowed to fall". It is worth acknowledging that the benefits of the provisions of the Bill will predominantly be felt by people on lower pay. Indeed, sections 8 and 9 stipulate that the Bill should not impact the provision of more favourable provisions in contracts of employment. I think all Members would accept that, in general, better-paid workers are already well catered for in terms of sick pay provision.

As I stated, the Bill only begins the process of catching up with sick pay provisions in other jurisdictions. My natural impulse would have been for us to go further and faster but I have, in the interim, engaged with several small businesses in Waterford and heard their concerns. I accept the space the Tánaiste has left in the Bill for us to sequence appropriately, as he termed it, and for businesses to be given time and space to adapt to and accommodate the provisions set out in the Bill.

I welcome the provisions of section 5(2) and section 6, which allow us to go beyond the original scope of the Bill and to expand and extend. The points raised by Deputy Louise O'Reilly and other speakers in respect of section 5(5) are well made. Deputy Ó Ríordáin referred to ECCE workers and that is a good example to illustrate one of the issues in respect of the requirement for 13 consecutive weeks of employment. Those points are well made and perhaps that is something to which the Minister will return on Committee Stage.

Section 7 as presented relates to regulating for exactly how much is put in. I agree that the amount should be set by regulation because we would like the Bill to be here for the long haul and if we set out rates of payment within it, those rates will quickly become out of date. However, we should have a mind to whether the figure of €110 is sufficient. I have a nagging concern relating to section 5(8). It has also been referenced by other Deputies. Of course, there is a need to have medical certification, but there is a cost attached to that. If the daily rate is €110 but €55 of that is used to pay one's GP for a medical certificate, that is a large cost to bear. It effectively reduces one's three days of paid sick leave to two and a half days.

Section 10 deals with exemptions and obligations. The provisions look strong to my eye but it is essential that the section is watertight in order to prevent abuse. Perhaps that can be examined and the language strengthened on Committee Stage.

To zoom out on the Bill - I apologise to the Ceann Comhairle, who has heard this spiel from me before - I wish to look at the bigger picture and the wider conversation on how we cope with disruption in the world of work caused by digitisation, automation and artificial intelligence. There is an ongoing challenge in respect of valuing care work and the caring economy. In the context of automation and digitisation and to borrow some language from Marx, increasingly, capital does not just own the means of production but also the mode of production through non-human labour. Perhaps the most important point is that we have to think in the long term about how we reimagine our economy in the face of the climate challenge and whether we need to be considering degrowth and steady-state economics. At the least, we should be considering how we decouple economic and social growth from our emissions profile. To return to President Higgins's concept of a minimum floor of citizenship and cognisant of the often-overlooked objective truth that economy is a subset of ecology, rather than the other way around, if we are to have a society that can hope to sustain a minimum floor of material well-being for our people, we must make the changes in economy and society that will allow us to attain our climate objectives. That is a broad sweep but, as a legislative House, we need to have one eye to that longer future.

The Bill is a small step in the right direction in terms of securing and improving the rights of workers. I agree with some of the speakers on the other side of the House that there may be scope to consider some of the provisions of the Bill on Committee Stage in order to strengthen those rights and to ensure the Bill achieves what it is intended to achieve, that is, to protect, in particular, workers who are on the lowest levels of pay and to allow them the facility and opportunity to remain at home when sick, as should be their right and as benefits both them and wider society.

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