Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Ríordáin and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. The issue here is that a very gross discrimination was created by the Government's proposal, whereby an employee whose service was interrupted would go back to zero, lose his or her rights to sick pay and have to work up the 13 weeks again. This meant that the Bill, as drafted, excluded many of the most vulnerable workers the Government claims to be trying to protect. Those who are under the most pressure to go to work even if they are sick were left in a situation where they would be excluded from this protection. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, pointed out the impact this would have on women and migrant workers in particular. Its general secretary, Patricia King, wrote to the Tánaiste pointing out that the existing provision would "leave hundreds of thousands of mostly women and foreign-born essential workers employed in low-pay jobs, who routinely have their service broken by their employer, without coverage for 3 months each year". A good case study in this regard is the position of childcare workers, 98% of whom are female, being let go over the summer holidays and rehired in September, who would, therefore, be without the entitlement to sick pay for the first 13 weeks after their return.

The Government's amendment No. 7 goes some way to addressing this issue, but it does not go all the way. My reading of the amendment is that it will deal with the previous period of employment, that is, the period of employment before the current one in which the need for sick pay arises. However, my understanding - the Tánaiste will correct me if I am wrong - is that it would not include any period before that. If, say, an employee has done ten weeks previously and comes back within the 26-week period and does another three weeks, then, if amendment No. 7 is passed, he or she would be entitled to sick pay. That is a step forward. However, it is my understanding that where an employee has worked for three weeks in the current period and five weeks in the period before that, for example, and there was a previous break at that point, before which the employee had worked another five weeks, then this total of 13 weeks would not be taken into account. The Government amendment would deal with the situation of the hypothetical childcare worker because that involves a big block of work, followed by a break, followed by another big block of work. However, there are other workers who have their service broken continually and who might be accumulating the 13 weeks of service in smaller blocks. As far as I can tell, amendment No. 7 would not deal with that situation.

Setting aside the position of contract workers, people's service being broken and so on, there is a basic public health need for sick pay and the right to it should apply from day one, regardless. That is a basic point that the Government's amendment certainly does not address. I am interested in the Tánaiste's response to that point and to my question as to whether past periods of service prior to the immediately previous period would be included as counting towards service for sick pay purposes.

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