Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill. The response from some in the Opposition to what we are achieving here is less than fair. Almost 1 million workers in Ireland are without either a sick pay or pension scheme, and this year we will move to remedy in our legislative code both those elements. One thing we have learnt from Covid is how many very important and strategic workers are in precarious positions. Some of that precariousness comes from their exposure in having no pension scheme other than social welfare and no sick pay scheme within their workplace. It is welcome not only that we have moved to respond to the remote working issue, which has become so clear during Covid, but also that we are moving in this area too. If I may be so bold as to say so, training is the next frontier. We need to start to develop statutory rights to training and the opportunity for personal development for people within our code. That is very underdeveloped in Ireland, and it is important and right that people in an environment in which change so frequently occurs have that.

At the committee, we grappled with some of these issues. I see Deputy Paul Murphy is here. One might say that we do not often agree on things, but one thing on which we did agree - I do not think it is reflected in either of the recommendations, which I thought it would be, and it is still in the Bill - is the requirement of 13 weeks' continuous employment before becoming eligible. If people fall ill on the first, second or third day of their employment, they should be covered for sick pay. They are not less entitled to be covered for sick pay and to get the opportunity to see a medical consultant if they need one because they have been only 13 weeks in their employment. I do not really understand that. Like Deputy Paul Murphy, I feel that people do not take on jobs to head off on some spurious illness claim, especially not when medical certification is required.

The committee also grappled with the fact that getting medical certification in Ireland is not free. At the same time, most of us - probably all of us - recognised that, in the final analysis, an employer must be able to see verification that the sick leave claim is valid. We struggled with that. We produced a consensus of words but we recognise that there is a difficulty there. We need to see codes of good practice developed by employers that would recognise some level of flexibility in the way in which people would be certified. At the end of the day, however, there has to be certification. I think that is recognised.

We also grappled with the issue of small employers that have to substitute people when they go out ill. There is no doubt but that there is a difference between a large organisation that finds it easy to substitute people and a very small one-person or two-person operation where if one staff member is gone, the employer has to find a substitute. However, it is difficult to see, other than in the inability-to-pay clause, how that could be responded to. The convenience stores have written to Deputies talking about the need for an offset. There is an offset in the tax code in that there is a tax allowability for the additional pay that would be there. Again, however, I do not think the committee was able to come up with a solution other than what is here.

The criticism is that this scheme is very ungenerous. It is worth saying that the 70% rate is pretty much at the midpoint, if not on the upper end, of what happens in the rest of Europe. Yes, there are countries that have 100% cover and they have very long traditions of very high employee obligations that have been there for years. However, as for developing a new obligation on employers to pay, this is a very important step forward and the phasing is appropriate. Employers also are coming out of a very difficult pandemic and many of them are struggling, but we cannot afford to ignore that cover for sickness is one of the things that has to be in place. Pandemics have exposed that particularly but, even without a pandemic, it is right to have such cover in place.

I welcome what is being done with this Bill.

While the case has been that medical certification should be dropped, I think it has to be there as a longstop. There has to be the right for an employer to see that there is certification. It is not something that would always be used, and I would hope employers would be able to proceed on a trust basis. However, in my view, it has to be there.

I do not think the 13 weeks requirement is something that ought to there. I do not think it is justified element of this Bill. I hope that can be examined in the course of the debate. To be fair, in the committee, I think everyone tried to find the middle ground at pre-legislative scrutiny. While we might have come with different perspectives, we managed to get something that highlights some of our concerns. It is not in the report I got on the website, but I think Deputy Paul Murphy will confirm that there was consensus at the committee that the 13 weeks was not a good element to have in the Bill.

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