Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As a group colleague, I congratulate the Acting Chair, Deputy Verona Murphy, for assuming the role today.

The Bill acknowledges that Ireland does not have a mandatory employer-funded sick pay scheme. As the Tánaiste outlined, one of the obvious impacts of not having a sick pay scheme is that some workers take the decision to attend work even when sick. In the context of spreading infection and Covid, we well understand the damage this can do. There is the potential for injury at work or injury being caused to fellow employees. I do not think employers or employees would want to see this.

The Tánaiste outlined that the Department has done quite a bit of background work and that up to 50% of workers in the State are already covered by statutory or employee sick pay schemes. The Tánaiste also noted that public sector workers already enjoy a sick pay scheme. This is an anomaly for employers in the private sector. Smaller private employers who are going to have to fund the scheme will do so out of their revenues while public sector bodies and employees are funded from the State. This is an inequity that exists in a number of other areas. It is something we will have to look at. It is not fair, particularly for small, medium and micro enterprises, that suddenly they have to suffer this cost. Perhaps the State can look at remediation in this regard.

The Tánaiste highlighted an annual entitlement of three days on the scheme. Nobody would say this is a significant burden on small businesses but as it ramps up to ten days over the next three to four years, it could become so. It is my experience that most small businesses do their best to cover genuine sick days as they understand it is a fundamental part of employer-employee relations. It assists them with retaining staff and valuing staff. There is no doubt that lower-paid workers, contract workers and part-time workers need to have a scheme to support access to sick leave. Therefore, I support the Bill the Tánaiste is progressing today.

The Tánaiste also outlined that the Bill represents one part of a suite of legislation the Government hopes to roll out to further protect employee rights and safeguards in the State. I do not believe anyone could argue with a socially progressive agenda to benefit all citizens and all workers and, most especially, those productively earning and generating tax revenue. This is needed to pay the social contract to which we have all signed up and aspire to, to look after every individual in the State when they are in need.

The Tánaiste referenced that the scheme is really only needed for those in private employment and for those who are low paid. This also points to the vulnerability of business. As the Tánaiste outlined, the small and medium sectors are grappling with the effects of Covid and the impacts it has had on their businesses to date. He is well aware of the many businesses that have warehoused debt through availing of Government Covid schemes. This will be somewhat precarious for businesses when they have to engage again with Revenue on the repayment of this debt. They are facing increased cost environments across the board in terms of manufacturing and service provision. They are struggling to recruit in many sectors. This is particularly applicable to food manufacturing and the construction sector.

I do not subscribe to the view that every employer is out to screw their employees, that every employer seeks profit at every turn or that every employer sees only capital labour and not the faces of those they employ. Many small employers whom I know are intrinsically involved in the lives of their employees. They celebrate family days such as communions and confirmations and sometimes holiday events. At times I have a concern as to how private employment is portrayed in the House and in the State. More than 900,000 workers in the country are employed in the small and medium enterprise sector. Many are promoted by people who have risked everything to build on a dream to start a business, see it grow and provide a financial future for their families and those whom they employ, becoming something on which they can all come to depend.

I have to confess frustration when I hear that bodies such as IBEC and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, have been consulted and have expressed support for whatever legislation is being proposed when very little representation has been offered to the owners and operators of indigenous small businesses and microenterprises. IBEC and ICTU represent, in the main, the wishes of large-scale businesses and the aspirations of large-scale public sector unions. I have, in the past, expressed in the House my disappointment at the lack of small business representation on the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF. The Tánaiste has mentioned today that one-size legislation may not fit all but, in effect, that is exactly what is being proposed here today.

This Bill does not recognise the cost to small businesses arising from the requirement to add statutory sick pay to subcontractor costs to cover employee absence. This happens frequently in the agriculture sector, including in the area of dairying, and in the construction and fabrication sectors. If I were to propose an amendment to this Bill, it would be to make some sort of tax credit available to microenterprises and small businesses whereby the additional costs of supporting a statutory sick pay scheme, where incurred, can be offset or ameliorated to some degree.

The issue of access to GP visits and their cost has been covered a number of times already. Further work is obviously needed on this, particularly in respect of the low-paid for whom the cost of accessing a GP will cancel out the benefit of a day's statutory sick pay. The issue of the difficulty of getting more GPs to train and then stay in the system in Ireland also arises, an issue the Tánaiste will be well aware of. As he will know, there is a major problem around the country with GPs retiring. How will this scheme work when most people now ringing a GP find themselves unable to get an appointment that day?

In the main, I look forward to this legislation progressing, although I hope to see a change in the attitude and language of some in this House - I do not include the Government parties in that - with respect to the positioning and representation of private employment in this country. Many businesses in this country cannot recruit at this moment in time and I will not accept the suggestion that exploitation is widespread and that groups of employees are being deliberately targeted. We have robust legislation covering the world of work. This must be added to and Government has proposed and is considering a suite of measures to improve matters and to remove shortfalls, where they arise. Most of all, we need a collaborative approach between all employers and specifically between those who are most marginal, that is, the small, medium and micro enterprises, so that all representations can be done on a managed basis, that all aspirations can be achieved and that we wind up with agreements that reflect the needs of small and marginally profitable businesses as well as those of larger employers. In such an environment, progressive legislation could be tabled and adopted to ensure both the rights of workers and the ability of our productive sector to continue to compete and grow.

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